• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.441-448
• /
• 2010

In the aging society, the walking assist robot is a necessary device for being able to help the older and the lower limb disabled people to walk. In order to produce a convenient robot for the older and the lower limb disabled, it is needed for the research to detect the implicit walking intention and to control robot by a user's intention. This study is a previous study to develop the detection model of the walking intention and analyze the user's walking intention while a person is walking with Lofstrand crutches, by the combination of FSR and tilt signals. The FSR sensors attached user's the palm and the soles of foot are sensing force/pressure signals from these areas and are used for detecting the walking intention and states. The tilt sensor acquires roll and pitch signal from area of vertebrae lumbales and reflects the pose of the upper limb. We can recognize the user's walking intention such as 'start walking', 'start of right or left foot forward', and 'stop walking' by the combination of FSR and tilt signals can recognize.

• Journal of IKEEE
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.249-256
• /
• 2022

The prosthetic leg is a device that performs walking instead of a amputated lower limb, and require a change in locomotion mode by providing the user's intention to respond to a discontinuous locomotion environment. Research has been conducted to detect the users' intentions through biomechanical features inside the socket that directly contacts the cut site in demand for natural locomotion mode changes without external control equipment. However, there is still a need for a sensor system that is suitable for the internal environment of the main body and socket of the cut site. Accordingly, this paper proposed a film-type sensor system that is suitable for the main body characteristics of the cut site, is not affected by the temperature and humidity conditions inside the socket, and is easy to manufacture in various sizes. The proposed sensor is manufactured base on Velostat film and takes into account the pressure measurement characteristics that vary with size. Through the experiment, the change in the internal pressure of the socket due to the intentional posture performance of the wearer was measured, and the possibility of detecting the intention to change the locomotion mode was confirmed.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
• /
• v.41 no.9
• /
• pp.825-837
• /
• 2017

This paper describes a novel type of a walking rehabilitation robot that applies robot technologies to crutches used by patients with walking difficulties in the lower body. The primary features of the developed robot are divided into three parts. First, the developed robot is worn on the patient's chest, as opposed to the conventional elbow crutch that is attached to the forearm; hence, it can effectively disperse the patient's weight throughout the width of the chest, and eliminate the concentrated load at the elbow. Furthermore, it allows free arm motion during walking. Second, the developed robot can recognize the walking intention of the patient from the magnitude and direction of the ground reactive forces. This is done using three-axis force sensors attached to the feet of the robot. Third, the robot can perform a stair walking function, which can change vertical movement trajectories in order to step up and down a single stair according to the floor height. Consequently, we experimentally showed that the developed robot can effectively perform walking rehabilitation assistance by perceiving the walking intention of the patient. Moreover we quantitatively verified muscle power assistance by measuring the electromyography (EMG) signals of the muscles of the lower limb.

• ICROS
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.25-30
• /
• 2015

본 논문에서는 간병인의 도움없이 자가 보행 재활에 효과적으로 사용될 수 있는 새로운 개념의 가슴 착용형 로봇을 개발하였다. 개발된 로봇의 특징은 크게 세 가지로 나뉜다. 첫째, 구조적 특징으로써, 하박에 착용하는 기존 지팡이 타입의 엘보 크러치와 달리 개발된 로봇은 가슴에 착용되어 착용자의 두 팔을 자유롭게 하는 동시에 팔의 부담을 제거하여 준다. 둘째는 구동 알고리즘의 특징으로써, 가슴부에 부착된 압력센서로부터 사용자의 보행의도를 자동적으로 인식하여 로봇의 다리를 이동시킨다. 또한 착용자의 안전을 위해 초음파 센서를 이용하여 착용자 전방에 장애물이 나타날 시 보행을 멈추고 경고음을 발생시킨다. 마지막으로, 스카치요크 메커니즘을 사용하여 지지다리의 상승과 하강 시 지면 반발력으로 인하여지지 발 상/하강 모터에 과도한 토크가 부과되지 않도록 하였다. 이러한 세 가지 특징으로부터 개발된 로봇이 자가 보행 재활에 효과적으로 사용될 수 있음을 실험적으로 보였으며, EMG (Electromyography) 센서를 이용하여 근력 보조 성능을 정량적으로 검증하였다.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.68-83
• /
• 2019

The number of pedestrian traffic accident fatalities is three times the number of car accidents in South Korea. Serious accidents are caused especially at intersections when the vehicle turns to their right. Various pedestrian collision warning services have been developed, but they are insufficient to prevent dangerous pedestrians. In this study, P2CWS is developed to warn approaching vehicles based on the pedestrians' characteristics. In order to evaluate the performance of the service, actual pedestrian data were collected at the intersection of Daejeon, and comparative analysis was carried out according to pedestrian characteristics. As a result, the performance analysis showed a higher accordance when the characteristics of the pedestrian is considered. Accordingly, we can conclude that identifying pedestrian characteristics in predicting the pedestrian crossing is important.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.440-448
• /
• 2015

A pedestrian collision warning system which makes a judgement of pedestrian's intention to help avoiding hitting accidents is proposed. This system uses the image sequences obtained from a car black box as well as vehicle's speed obtained from a GPS. It detects pedestrians, if any, based on the Histogram of Gradient method and extracts several information such as the pedestrian's relative positions, the direction of motion vectors, and distance between vehicle and pedestrian . A fuzzy logic based on these extracted information is applied to analyze the pedestrian's safety levels. When the safety level is determined to be danger, an alarm is triggered to the driver. The performance of the proposed algorithm is tested under various driving scenarios, which shows it works successfully in real-time.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
• /
• v.38 no.8
• /
• pp.837-848
• /
• 2014

This paper describes the development of a walking assistive robot for effective self-rehabilitation for elderly people facing an inconvenience in walking. The main features of the developed robot are enhanced safety and mobility using the baby walker and electric wheelchair mechanisms and an accurate walking tracking control algorithm using potentiometers and stereo cameras. Specifically, a pelvis supporter is designed to prevent the user from falling down and reduce the burden on their legs, and electric motors are used for easy locomotion with low effort. Next, the walking intention and direction of the user are automatically recognized by using potentiometers attached at the pelvis supporter so that the robot can track the user, and the rapidity and accuracy of the tracking were increased by applying a lower-body motion analysis algorithm with stereo cameras. Finally, the user-tracking performance of the developed robot was experimentally verified through stepwise walking assistance experiments.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.180-194
• /
• 2015

On roads vehicles are the bossy, while pedestrians are the frangible. The current paper has a purpose for contributing to pedestrian's safety. First, it studies the association between demographic parameters and TPB(Theory of Planned Behavior)'s variables(pedestrian's attitude toward crossing behavior in roads, personal norm, etc.) and his/her crossing intention, perceived risk while crossing, and the experience of past traffic accidents. Its sample comes from a specific population(college students). Further, the present study endeavors to explain the portion of human cognitive failure/error, impulsiveness, time perspective, and probabilistic/math-logical judgment ability in pedestrian's riky crossings on roads. Research results found that TPB variables and such a few human characteristics have some significant association with the risky crossing intention on the road. Considering the human psychological portion in pedestrian accidents would help us prevent the accidents and reduce unhappiness of the accidents and, further, economic loss and insurance expenditure related with the accidents.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
• /
• v.34 no.6
• /
• pp.667-673
• /
• 2010

This paper proposes a control method based on a pseudo-impedance model to control the motion of biped robots walking on an uneven surface. The pseudo-impedance model simulates the action of the ankle of a foot landing on the ground when a human walks. When the foot is in contact with the ground, the human ankle goes through two different phases. In the first phase, the human exerts little or no effort and applies no torque on the ankle so that the orientation of the foot is effortlessly and passively adjusted with respect to the ground. In the second phase of landing, the ankle generates a significant amount of torque in order to rotate and move the main part of the human body forward and to support the weight of the human; this phase is called the weight acceptance phase. Computer simulations of a 12-DOF biped robot with a 6-DOF environment model were performed to determine the effectiveness of the proposed pseudo-impedance control. The simulation results show that stable locomotion can be achieved on an irregular surface by using the proposed model.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
• /
• v.39 no.2
• /
• pp.21-34
• /
• 2002

Different from ordinary mobile robots used in a well-structured industrial workspace, a guide mobile robot for the visually impaired should be designed in consideration of a moving obstacle, which mostly refers to pedestrians in intentional motions. Thus, the navigation of the guide robot can be facilitated if the intention of each detected obstacle can be known in advance. In this paper, we propose an inference method to understand an intention of a detected obstacle. In order to represent the environment with ultrasonic sensors, the fuzzy grid-type map is first constructed. Then, we detect the obstacle and infer the intention for collision avoidance with the CLA(Centroid of Largest Area) point of the fuzzy grid-type map. To verify the proposed method, some experiments are performed.