• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.7
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• pp.153-161
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• 2015

In the present study, as part of the technology development (Quality of Life Technology, QoLT) to improve the socio-economic status of people with disabilities as an extension of these studies, we propose the development of the smart wheelchair system and navigation technology for stable and safe driving in various environments. For the disabled and the elderly make driving easy and convenient with manual/autonomous driving condition, we firstly develop the user-oriented smart wheelchair system with optimized sensors for environment recognition, and then we propose a navigation framework of a hierarchical structure to ensure real-time response, as well as driving stability when traveling to various environmental changes, and to enable a more efficient operation. From the result of several independent experiments, we ensure efficiency and safety of smart wheelchair and its navigation system.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.28 no.9
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• pp.1110-1118
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• 2011

The recent power add-on drive wheelchairs (PADWs) provide greater physical activity and easier transportability and may be an excellent alternative for the typical manual and powered wheelchairs. The driving system consists of a motor and a motor driver is the most important component of the PADW In this paper, design, implementation, and testing of a driving system for a PADW are presented. To design the output power and torque for the driving system, the equation of motion has been investigated. The motor and driver were fabricated with precise machining and assembled to implement our prototype driving system. The dynamometer test has been carried out using the prototype in order to examine the torque of the system. The experimental results demonstrates that the designed driving system can provide enough output power and efficiency for utilization in a PADW.

• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.8-15
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• 2019

Wheelchair users experience difficulty when using transportation. This is because wheelchair users must use transportation means together with wheelchairs. Therefore, in this paper, we developed a wheelchair storage system for passenger's car trunk. The mechanism is designed to allow a wheelchair and the device to be housed simultaneously in the narrow space of the trunk of the sedan passenger car. Additionally, this wheelchair storage system has implemented an initial load reduction mechanism that can mechanically reduce the initial load. This wheelchair storage system verified the system's operability through the production of the prototype. This system was actually installed in the trunk of the sedan passenger's car to verify the storage process. The operation and storage process of the wheelchair storage system was been perfectly verified. This wheelchair storage system will help a lot of self-driver or an assistant (female or elderly) who use wheelchairs.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.80-85
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• 2011

This paper presents the design of the power-assisted controller for the in-wheel type smart wheelchair by using torque estimation that is predicted by relationship between input voltage and output wheel angular velocity. Nowadays, interest of the moving assistant aids is increased according to the increase in population of the elderly and the handicapped person. However some of the moving assistant aids have problems. For example, manual wheelchair has difficulty moving at the slope, because users lack the muscular strength of their arm. In electric wheelchair case, users should be weak by being decreased muscles of upper body. To overcome these problems, power-assisted electric wheelchair are proposed. Most of the power-assisted electric wheelchair have the special rims that can measure the user's power. In here, the rims have to be designed to install the sensors to measure user's power. In this paper, we don't design the rim to measure the man power. To predict the man power, we propose a control algorithm of the in-wheeled electric wheelchair by using torque estimation from the wheel. First, we measure the wheel velocity and voltage at the in-wheel electric wheelchair. And then we extract driving will forces by using proposed mathematical model. Also they are applied at the controller as the control input, we verify to be able to control in-wheel type smart wheelchair by using simulation.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.63-68
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• 2013

Manual wheelchair is one of the most used assistant device in Korea and the size of the wheelchair is defined as KS P ISO 7176-5 which follows the ISO 7176-5 standard size. But the standard often doesn't fit to Korean people because the ISO was enacted by foreigners' body sizes. Actually the result of survey from the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards showd that the designated sizes of height, width, deep of seat except armrest and the height of backrest of a chair in the present KS P ISO 7176-5 are much bigger and the height of armrest is smaller than the sizes investigated by the survey. In case the disabled person has a long wheelchair use time everyday, the posture of user should be uncomfortable because the mismatched size should cause user's pelvis rotations, slouching pose and low stability. Also, inside of knee may touch the wheelchair seat and user can't keep a correct posture. In this paper, the body sizes of Korean disabled person were investigated and the correct wheelchair sizes for Korean people are provided.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.49-50
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• 2010

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2011.06a
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• pp.1465-1466
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• 2011

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.917-918
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• 2010

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06c
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• pp.464-469
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• 2001

This work provides the biomechanical evaluations of a manual wheelchair with a bi-directional driving system. The new propulsion strategy can be accomplished by employing a special gear system that converts the oscillatory motion of a handrim into the unidirectional output motion of a wheel. A main feature of the forward. backward propulsion is to supply continuous driving torque without break. Motion. analysis has been performed through 2-dimensional image processing for measuring the kinematic properties of the upper arm and fore arm. Then, the inverse dynamics analysis has been done for obtaining the joint torques, the handrim forces and input/output powers. Results show that the output power by the forward. reverse propulsion is almost twice as much as that by conventional propulsion. Also, the new propulsion is expected to reduce the fatigues and injuries at arm joints by employing more muscle groups for movement. In conclusion, the forward. reverse propulsion can greatly improve the performances of manual wheelchairs by providing better mobility as well as by guaranteeing several advantages from a biomechanical viewpoint. Future development of a manual wheelchair optimized for the bi-directional propulsion will further improve the propulsion performances.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.28 no.8
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• pp.992-999
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• 2011

The recent power add-on drive wheelchairs (PADWs) provide greater physical activity, are easier to transport, and may be an excellent alternative for the typical manual or electric wheelchairs. The development of in-wheel motor for a PADW is the principal issues. In this paper, design, implementation, and testing of the permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) for a PADW are presented. To design output power and torque of the motor, the equation of motion has been investigated. The design parameters were calculated and the dimension and shape of the motor which was limited by the In-wheel mechanism of the PADW were done by applying FEM and optimal design technique. The prototype of the motor mentioned above was fabricated with precise machining and assembling. Then the motor tested on dynamometer and the measured results of the motor were verified by comparing the design results. The fabricated motor was 80 mm in length with a diameter of 110 mm and small enough to be attached the driving unit of the PADW.