• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.104-110
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• 2008

The aim of this study ultimately is verifying that PGO gait is more efficient than RGO fur paraplegics because the air muscle assists hip flexion power in heel off movement. The gait characteristics of the paraplegic wearing the PGO or RGO are compared with that of a normal person. PGO with air muscles was used to analyze the walking of patients with lower-limb paralysis, and the results showed that the hip joint flexion and pelvic tilt angle decreased in PGO. In comparison to RGO gait, which is propelled by the movements of the back, PGO uses air muscles, which decreases the movement in the upper limb from a stance phase rate of 79$\pm$4%(RGO) to 68$\pm$8%. The energy consumption rate was 8.65$\pm$3.3 (ml/min/Kg) for RGO, while it decreased to 7.21t2.5(ml/min/Kg) for PGO. The results from this study show that PGO decreases energy consumption while providing support for patients with lower-limb paralysis, and it is helpful in walking for extended times.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 2003.09b
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• pp.1-4
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• 2003

인간의 작업을 보조 혹은 대신하기 위해서 인간과 흡사한 이족보행로봇에 대한 연구가 많이 진행되고 있다. 이족보행로봇이 인간을 대신해서 어떤 작업을 하기 위해서는 작업공간에서의 자유로운 이동과 장애물 대처능력은 반드시 필요한 기능이다. 본 논문에서는 안정된 정적보행 및 장애물을 지능적으로 대처하는 이족보행로봇의 보행알고리즘을 제안하였다. 먼저 장애물 대처가능한 이족보행로봇의 기구 설계 및 제어기 구현에 대하여 설명하고, 인간의 보행 분석 결과를 바탕으로 안정된 정적보행 알고리즘을 제안하였다. 또한 좌우 회전 및 옆걸음을 통한 장애물 회피 알고리즘, 발에 부착된 적외선센서로 장애물을 인식하여 장애물을 넘어가는 보행 알고리즘을 제안하였다. 제안한 보행알고리즘은 이족보행로봇을 제작하여 다양한 작업환경에서 실험으로 성능을 검증하였다.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.161-168
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• 2020

This study is designed to develop a walker to assist the elderly in safe, independent walking. To this end, problems were identified through analysis of the walker for the elderly and user observations were used to identify problems and needs. The product analysis showed that most elderly walkers tend to prioritize their functions. In addition, user observations showed that most users had positive perceptions about the function, but that structural aspects, such as operation methods and stability, had negative consequences. A total of five design guidelines were derived based on the problems and needs derived. The design guidelines were designed to focus on improving structural problems rather than functional parts, and to orientate safety over functional priorities. Five design guidelines derived from this study could be used as basic data for the manufacture of walkers that reflect the views and needs of the elderly in the future in the manufacture and design of walkers for the elderly.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.55-62
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• 2013

The exoskeleton robot to assist walking of hemiplegia patients or disabled persons has been studied in this paper. The exoskeleton robot with degrees of freedom of 2 axis has been developed and tested for joint motion. The obtained EMG signal from normal person was analyzed and the control signal was extracted from it for convenient and automotive performance of assistance robot to help hemiplegia patient walks as normal person does. the purpose of using FES(Functional Electrical Stimulation) for hemiplegia patient's walk is to restore damaged body function by this, but this could give fatal electrical shock to patients by wrong use or cause quick fatigue in muscle by continuous stimulation. The convenient movement of hemiplegia patients with minimum muscle fatigue was looked possibly by operation of assistance robot exoskeleton using control signal. and the walking assistance exoskeleton robot seemed works more efficiently than using FES stimulator. The experiment in this study was performed based on usual motion in our life like walking, standing-up, sitting-down, and particularly feedback control system using Piezo sensor along with button switch was applied for smooth swing motion in walking. The experiment also shows that hemiplegia patients can move conveniently by using electromyogram signal of healthy leg for the operation signal of assistance robot system attached at damaged symmetrical leg.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.261-268
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• 2013

In this paper, we propose the algorithm that improves the linearity of the walking assistant robot on lateral slopes. The walking assistant robot goes out of the course due to the rotational moment which is caused by the weight of the robot and the slope. To compensate this, we give the weight to each driving axle after comparing the real rotational angular velocity with the target rotational angular velocity which is entered by an user. The results of applying the algorithm to the real walking assistant robot show that the yaw axis deviation of the robot without the algorithm diverges, but the yaw axis deviation of the robot with the algorithm lies within 20cm, which can be recognized as stable. In addition, the changing rate of the course deviation is stabilized and shows no more course deviation, after moving 300cm.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.385-390
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• 2021

This study aims to provide primary data for R&D on rollator-walking frame through researching the usability test of the rollator-walking frame and the effect of rollator-walking frames on the lives of senior citizens. This study surveyed 60 senior citizens living in Sungnam City in South Korea. As the result of the usability test, we can find users' dissatisfaction with the folding, weight, shape of backrest and material of chair. The survey shows that the frequency of outdoor activity is mostly increased by the convenience of product. However, the inconvenience while using facilities, such as elevators or public transportations, gave a significant impact on the decrease in going out experiences. Therefore, for better outside lifestyle of senior citizens, it is important to improve the function of the product, however, we need to make improvement of urban infrastructure.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.207-214
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• 2016

The aim of this study was to evaluate Influence on intra-limb coordination in individuals wearing knee brace during walking. Seven healthy male adults ($32.3{\pm}2.7$ years old, $175.2{\pm}3.8cm$, $76.2{\pm}8.7kg$) participated. They wore knee brace or didn't wear any knee brace and were asked to walk along a 10 m long walkway. Spatiotemporal parameters, angles of the lower limbs, and intra-limb continuous relative phase (CRP) were measured and calculated. No differences of spatiotemporal parameters were shown (all p > 0.05). There were no changes in the angle and its range of motion (ROM) in the hip for the subjects as wearing knee brace, while ROM ($65.5{\pm}3.7^{\circ}$ vs. $60.5{\pm}3.5^{\circ}$, p < 0.05) of the angle and maximum flexion angles (stance: $31.9{\pm}4.6$ vs. $25.6{\pm}5.5$, swing: $76.7{\pm}3.1$ vs. $68.9{\pm}3.4$, all p < 0.05) in the knee significantly decreased. No changes in ROM of angle in the ankle were shown, whereas maximum dorsiflexion decreased ($22.4{\pm}2.6$ vs. $19.2{\pm}2.1$, p < 0.05) and maximum plantarflexion increased ($9.5{\pm}3.0$ vs. $15.7{\pm}2.2$, p<0.05). There were no changes in most of CRP between joints. CRP between the hip and knee joints decreased ($93.0{\pm}7.8$ vs, $84.7{\pm}4.9$, p < 0.05). Most of CRP standard deviation increased (between the hip and ankle joint during swing: $25.1{\pm}6.7$ vs. $32.4{\pm}1.9$, between the knee and ankle joint during stance: $46.0{\pm}12.9$ vs. $80.1{\pm}31.1$, between the knee and ankle joint during swing: $34.5{\pm}4.1$ vs. $37.6{\pm}3.1$, all p < 0.05). These results indicated that wearing knee brace affected joint angle and intra-limb coordination, but less affected gait features.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2013.05a
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• pp.1457-1458
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• 2013

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.124-129
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• 2013

Hexapod walking robots are superior to biped or quadruped ones in terms of walking stability. Therefore hexapod robots have the advantage in performing intelligent tasks based on walking stability. In this paper, we propose a hexapod robot that has one fore leg, one hind leg, two left legs, and two right legs and can perform various intelligent tasks. We build the robot by using 26 motors and implement a controller which consists of a host PC, a DSP main controller, an AVR auxiliary controller, and smart phone/pad. We show by several experiments that the implemented robot can perform various intelligent tasks such as uneven surface walking, tracking and kicking a ball, remote control and 3D monitoring by using data obtained from stereo camera, infrared sensors, ultra sound sensors, and contact sensors.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.279-289
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• 2011

The latest hardware and software techniques are combined to give safe walking guidance and convenient service of realtime walking assistance system for visually impaired person. This system consists of obstacle detection and perception, place recognition, and sign recognition for pedestrian can safely walking to arrive at their destination. In this paper, we exploit the sign object detection system in subway station for sign recognition that one of the important factors of walking assistance system. This paper suggest the adaptive feature map that can be robustly extract the sign object region from complexed environment with light and noise. And recognize a sign using fast zernike moment features which is invariant under translation, rotation and scale of object during walking. We considered three types of signs as arrow, restroom, and exit number and perform the training and recognizing steps through adaboost classifier. The experimental results prove that our method can be suitable and stable for real-time system through yields on the average 87.16% stable detection rate and 20 frame/sec of operation time for three types of signs in 5000 images of sign database.