• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.347-356
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• 2023

Liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) fibers have been widely applied in various fields, such as soft robots and biomimetic actuators, in a one-dimensional form. LCEs possess the characteristics of both fluidity and solid order, as well as the elasticity of rubber, and exhibit stimulus-response based on these properties. In particular, by programming the responsiveness to various stimuli such as heat, light, electric fields, and magnetic fields in terms of shape-changing, various movements such as lifting, twisting, and rotating can be realized with high degrees of freedom. Therefore, LCE fibers have the potential for application in various fields such as artificial muscles, soft robots, wearable technologies, and sensing technologies. The research on liquid crystal elastomer fibers is evaluated to have high applicability in various fields in the Fourth Industrial Revolution as a smart material that can include various functionalities beyond simple fibers. In this review, we introduce the structure and basic characteristics of liquid crystal elastomer fibers, the latest research trends on orientation-based fabrication methods, and various applications such as artificial muscles, smart fabrics, and soft robots.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.175-176
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• 2007

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2013.05a
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• pp.1357-1358
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• 2013

• 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.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.1882-1892
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• 1996

This paper is concerned with the position control of the ond degree-of freedom manipulator using pneumatic artificial muscle actuator which is built to have a proper compliance. For t his pneumatic artificial muscle actuator though, it is difficult to make an effective control scheme due to the nonlinearity and uncertainties on the dynamics of the actuator. In this paper, a third-order equation of motion is derived for the actuator including the dynamics of the pneumatic servovalve. Later, various modeling uncertainties due to the nonlinearity and unmodeled dynamics of the servo vlave and the actuator are taken care of, as a trade-off between the closed-loop performance of the controlled system and its robustness to uncertainties. A controller using .mu. synthesis thchnique is designed, and robust performance against measurement noise, various modeling uncertainties due to the dynamics of the servo valve and actuator is achieved. The effectiveness of the proposed control methods is illustrated through simulations and experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.82-90
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• 2009

Pneumatic cylinder is one of the low cost actuation sources which have been applied in industrial and prosthetic application since it has a high power/weight ratio, a high-tension force and a long durability However, the control problems of pneumatic systems, oscillatory motion and compliance, have prevented their widespread use in advanced robotics. To overcome these shortcomings, a number of newer pneumatic actuators have been developed such as McKibben Muscle, Rubber Actuator and Pneumatic Artificial Muscle (PAM) Manipulators. In this paper, one solution for position control of a robot arm, which is driven by two pneumatic artificial muscles, is presented. However, some limitations still exist, such as a deterioration of the performance of transient response due to the changes in the external load of the robot arm. To overcome this problem, a switching algorithm of the control parameter using a learning vector quantization neural network (LVQNN) is proposed in this paper. This estimates the external load of the pneumatic artificial muscle manipulator. The effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm is demonstrated through experiments with different external working loads.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.361-367
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• 2015

This paper presents the design concept of an intrinsic continuum robot for safe man-machine interface and characteristic behaviors of its end-effector based on real experiments. Since pneumatic artificial muscles having similar antagonistic actuation to human muscles are used for main backbones of the proposed robot as well as in the role of the actuating devices, variable stiffness of robotic joints can be available in the actual environment. In order to solve the inherent shortcoming of an intrinsic continuum robot due to bending motion of the backbone materials, a Kalman filter scheme based on a triaxial accelerometer and a triaxial gyroscope was proposed to conduct an attitude estimation of the end-effector of the robot. The experimental results verified that the proposed method was effective in estimating the attitude of the end-effector of the intrinsic continuum robot.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.177-185
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• 2014

In this study, the exoskeleton orthosis for the assistance of dorsiflexion torque in ankle joint to prevent foot-drop was developed. It was consist of three part; 1) the power part using artificial pneumatic actuator, 2) wearing part of ankle and knee joints to fix the orthosis, and 3) control part to detect the gait phase using physiological signal. The dorsiflexion torque was generated by the artificial pneumatic actuator connected with wearing part between ankle and knee joint. The accurate timing to assist dorsiflexion torque is made up of physiological signal in foot sole part that detect the gait phase, that is, stance and swing phase in each foot. We conduct the experiment to investigate the effect of exoskeleton orthosis to the 7 elderly people and 10 healthy people. The result showed that the muscular activities in tibialis anterior muscle were reduced because of the assistance of dorsiflexion torque in ankle joint using the exoskeleton orthosis.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2022.11a
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• pp.550-552
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• 2022

최근 사물인터넷(IoT) 기기가 활성화됨에 따라 웨어러블 장치 환경에서 장기간 모니터링 및 수집이 가능해짐에 따라 생체 신호 처리 및 ECG 분석 연구가 활성화되고 있다. 그러나, ECG 데이터는 부정맥 비트의 불규칙적인 발생으로 인한 클래스 불균형 문제와 근육의 떨림 및 신호의 미약등과 같은 잡음으로 인해 낮은 신호 품질이 발생할 수 있으며 훈련용 공개데이터 세트가 작다는 특징을 갖는다. 이 논문에서는 ECG 1D 신호를 2D 스펙트로그램 이미지로 변환하여 잡음의 영향을 최소화하고 전이학습과 메타학습의 장점을 결합하여 클래스 불균형 문제와 소수의 데이터에서도 빠른 학습이 가능하다는 특징을 갖는다. 따라서, 이 논문에서는 ECG 스펙트럼 이미지를 사용하여 2D-CNN 메타-전이 학습 기반 부정맥 분류 기법을 제안한다.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.31 no.1 s.256
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• pp.36-42
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• 2007

This paper presents mechanical design, fabrication and test of a biomimetic fish robot actuated by a unimorph piezoceramic actuator, LIPCA(Lightweight Piezo-Composite curved Actuator.) We have designed a linkage mechanism that can convert bending motion of the LIPCA into the caudal fin movement. This linkage system consists of a rack-pinion system and four-bar linkage. Four types of artificial caudal fins that resemble caudal fin shapes of ostraciiform subcarangiform, carangiform, and thunniform fish, respectively, are attached to the posterior part of the robotic fish. The swimming test under 300 $V_{pp}$ input with 0.6 Hz to 1.2 Hz frequency was conducted to investigate effect of tail beat frequency and shape of caudal fin on the swimming speed of the robotic fish. At the frequency of 0.9 Hz, the maximum swimming speeds of 1.632 cm/s, 1.776 cm/s, 1.612 cm/s and 1.51 cm/s were reached for fish robots with ostraciiform, subcarangiform carangiform and thunniform caudal fins, respectively. The Strouhal number, which means the ratio between unsteady force and inertia force, or a measure of thrust efficiency, was calculated in order to examine thrust performance of the present biomimetic fish robot. The calculated Strouhal numbers show that the present robotic fish does not fall into the performance range of a fast swimming robot.