• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.321-328
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• 2016

In this paper, we propose a walk status method which can be fused with conventional walk intention method to improve convenience of an electric assistive walking system for elder people with restricted walking capabilities. The system uses a handlebar as a trigger and regards grabbing a handlebar as expressing will to walk. And the system uses a user's linear velocity and angular velocity as linear velocity and angular velocity of a system, checked by laser range finder. To achieve this, we propose a method to find a virtual central point of a human body by estimating a central point between two legs. The experiments are carried out by comparing user's linear velocity and angular velocity, and system's linear velocity and angular velocity. The results show that the error of linear velocity and angular velocity between a user and a system are 1% and 2.77%, which means the linear velocity and angular velocity of a user can be applied to a system. And it is confirmed that the proposed fusion method can prevent a user from being dragged by an assistive walking system or a malfunction caused by lack of experience

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.543-550
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• 2001

In this study, ground reaction force(GRF) and energy consumption of fixed. single-axis and multi-axis Prosthetic ankle assemblies were investigated to show the biomechanical evaluation for trans-tibial amputees. In the experiments. two male and two female trans-tibial amputees were tested with fixed, sin91e-axis and multi-axis Prosthetic ankle assembly. A three-dimensional gait analysis was carried out to derive the ratio of GRF to weight as the percentage of total stance Phase for nine Points Energy consumption of each Prosthetic ankle assembly was measured while subjects walked at 2km/h. 3km/h and the most comfortable walking speed on the treadmill The results showed that multi-axis ankle was superior to the other two ankle assemblies for the characteristic of forwarding and breaking forces. Fixed ankle was relatively superior to the other two ankle assemblies for gait balancing and movement of the center fur mass Compared to the other ankle assembly. sing1e-axis type showed lower energy consumption over 2.3km/h walking speed .

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.65-72
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• 2016

In this study, a fully active transfemoral prothesis with a knee joint is designed considering stair walking conditions. Since the torque at the knee joint required for stair walking condition is relative high compared with the one in normal walking condition, the proposed design has high torque generating mechanism. Moreover, the transfemoral prothesis is designed in compact size to reduce its weight, which is related to comfortable fit and fatigue of patients. Flat type BLDC motor is used for simple and compact structure and various components are used to generate required torque with target working angle and speed. The weight reduction of structure is carried out using optimization method after the initial design process is complete. The optimization is conducted under the load conditions of stair walking. The optimized design is validated via finite element analysis and experiments. As a result, the weight is reduced using topology and shape optimization but maintaining the safety of structure. Also the space efficiency is improved due to its compact size.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.305-313
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• 2016

Movements of the lower limb are important for normal walking and smooth oscillation of the center of gravity. The ankle rotations such as dorsi-flexion, plantar-flexion, inversion and eversion allows the foot to accommodate to ground during level ground walking. Current below knee (B/K) prostheses are used for replacing amputated ankle, and make it possible for amputees to walk again. However, most of amputees with B/K prostheses often experience a loss of terrain adaptability as well as stability because of limited ankle rotation. This study is focused on the development of multi-rotational prosthetic foot for lower limb amputee. Our prosthesis is possible for amputees to easily walk in level ground by rotating ankle joint in sagittal plane and adapt to the abnormal terrain with ankle rotation in coronal plane. The resistance of ankle joint in the direction of dorsi/plantar-flexion can be manually regulated by hydraulic damper with controllable nozzle. Furthermore, double layered rubber induce the prosthesis adapt to irregular ground by tilting itself in direction of eversion and inversion. The experimental results highlights the potential that our prosthesis induce a normal gait for below knee amputee.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.259-265
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• 2014

The aims of this study are to investigate the walking intention detection of a rollator based on Infraed (IR) sensor measuring knee joint anterior displacement and leg muscle activities. We used Active Walker attached IR sensor to measure the knee joint anterior displacement and EMG signal of leg muscles(rectus femoris, biceps femoris, tibialis anterior, gastrocnemius) were taken by Delsys bagnli-8ch. Subjects were eight healthy males(age $23.7{\pm}0.5years$, height $175.4{\pm}2.3cm$, weight $70.6{\pm}5.6kg$) and they were involved in experiments which had been proceeded 30 minutes a week, during 3 weeks. This system indicates that the knee joint anterior displacement had the distinction increases according to the gait slope and velocity. We showed the increase of the femoral muscle activities along the anterior tilt and the increase of the crural muscle activities along the posterior tilt.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2008.10b
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• pp.337-338
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• 2008

2008년 현재 우리나라는 10%의 인구가 60세 이상인 이른바 고령사회에 접어들었다. 노인 인구의 증가로 인해 노인이 여가생활 또는 일반생활을 보조하기 위한 보행 보조기에 대한 관심이 증가되고 있다. 대부분 동력이 없는 보행보조기를 사용하고 있으며 이러한 기구는 경사로 공간 또는 힘이 약한 노인들에게 취약성을 가지고 있다. 이에 동력형 보행보조로봇에 관심이 증가하고 있다. 동력형 보행보조로봇 역시 경사로에 있어서 편리성과 안전성을 높이기 위한 연구가 필요한 실정이다. 이에 본 논문에서는 보행보조로봇이 경사로에 진입 하였을 경우 기울어진 경사로의 정도를 인식하여 모터를 제어 한다. TILT 센서를 이용하여 기울이짐 정도를 측정 하였고, 또한 로봇의 전류 실시간으로 체크하여 로봇의 안전성을 향상 하였다. 제어 시스템 구성은 사용자의 보행의지를 파악하기위해 FSR 센서를 부착하여 조향장치로 사용하였으며, 경사로를 인식하기 위해 Liquid 타입의 TILT 센서를 사용하였으며, 모션 제어를 위해 DSP를 사용하였다. 본 제어 시스템을 보조보행로봇에 적용하였을 때, 보행보조로봇이 오르막 경사로에 진입시 기존보다 힘을 적게 사용하여 경사로를 진행하였으며, 경사로에서 브레이크 작동속도가 향상 되었다. 또한 내리막 경사로에서는 모터의 힘을 적게 사용하고 중력의 힘을 사용하여 이를 통해 전류의 소비량을 개선 하였다.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.631-637
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• 2010

In this paper, We propose a method of motion interpretation of pedestrian for active traffic signal control. We detect pedestrian object in a movie of crosswalk area by using the code book method and acquire contour information. To do this stage fast, we use parallel processing based on CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture). And we remove shadow which causes shape distortion of objects. Shadow removed object is judged by using the hilbert scan distance whether to human or noise. If the objects are judged as a human, we analyze pedestrian objects' motion, face area feature, waiting time to decide that they have intetion to across a crosswalk for pdestrians. Traffic signal can be controlled after judgement.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.24 no.8 s.197
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• pp.130-137
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• 2007

The optimized prosthetic mass distribution was a controversial problem in the previous studies because they are not supported by empirical evidence. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effect of prosthetic mass properties by modeling musculoskeletal system, based on the gait analysis data from two above-knee amputees. The joint torque at hip joint was calculated using inverse dynamic analysis as the mass was changed in knee and foot prosthetic components with the same joint kinematics. The results showed that the peak flexion and abduction torque at the hip joint were 5 Nm and 15 Nm when the mass of the knee component was increased, greater than the peak flexion and abduction torque of the control group at the hip joint, respectively. On the other hand, when the mass of the foot component was increased, the peak flexion and abduction torque at the hip joint were 20 Nm and 15 Nm, greater than the peak flexion and abduction torque of the control, respectively. The hip flexion torque was 4.71-fold greater and 7.92-fold greater than the hip abduction torque for the knee mass increase and the foot mass increase on the average, respectively. Therefore, we could conclude that the effect of foot mass increase was more sensitive than that of knee mass increase for the hip flexion torque. On the contrary, the mass properties of the knee and foot components were not sensitive for the hip abduction torque. In addition, optimized prosthetic mass and appropriate mass distributions were needed to promote efficiency of rehabilitation therapy with consideration of musculoskeletal systems of amputees.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.309-310
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• 2012

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.1193-1194
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• 2012