• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.47-53
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• 2018

Various types of robotic arms are being used for industrial purposes, particularly with the small production of multi-products, and the importance of the gripper, which can be used in industrial fields, is increasing. This study evaluated a variable stiffness mechanism gripper that can change the stiffness using the nonlinearity of a flexible material. A prototype of the gripper was fabricated and examined to confirm the change in stiffness. The previous gripper was unable to grip objects in some situations with three variable stiffness mechanism. In addition, these mechanisms were not balanced and rarely rotated when the object was gripped. Therefore, a new type of gripper was needed to solve this problem. Inspired by the movements of the human palm and Venus Flytrap, a new type of a variable stiffness soft robot hand was designed. The possibility of grasping could be increased by interlocking the palm folding mechanism by pulling the tendon attached to the variable stiffness mechanism. The soft robotic hand was used to grasp objects of various shapes and weights more stably than the previous variable stiffness mechanism gripper. This new variable stiffness soft robot hand can be used selectively depending on the application and environment to be used.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.750-758
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• 2016

In general, a system can be stable when it is designed with a rigid material. However, the use of a rigid system can be limited, such as grasping a glass or using a small surgical instrument. To resolve this limitation, a variable stiffness mechanism was developed using a flexible material. Previous research verified the variable stiffness mechanism where flexible segments and rigid segments were connected alternately in series. However, research into the design parameters of the variable stiffness structure is needed to satisfy the desired stiffness. Therefore, a variable stiffness structure was tested by varying the design parameters to confirm the trend of the stiffness variation. When the radius of the structure becomes larger, the stiffness increases. The stiffness increased with decreasing length of the flexible segments. Under the same design parameters, the length of the flexible segments had a greater effect on the stiffness than the length of the rigid segments. In addition, the stiffness was estimated using the pseudo rigid body model and was compared with the experimental results. This parametric study can be used as a design guideline for designing the variable stiffness mechanism to satisfy the desired stiffness.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.32 no.12
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• pp.1049-1054
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• 2015

Nowadays, there are many researches involving structural actuators, which have adjustable stiffness; they are also called variable stiffness actuators (VSA). The VSAs can adjust the characteristics of actuators for various functions and human-machine safety. This paper describes the design and analysis of two types of VSAs. To adjust stiffness, the actuators are controlled by a principle of lever ratio mechanism, by changing a pivot position or a spring position in the structure with springs. To make the principle workable, the designs are simplified by using a ball screw system with a motor. Each structure shows different static properties with variable rates of stiffness. We have also shown the experimental verification of the dynamic performance of the two types of VSAs. This research can be applied to various industrial fields, where humans work in conjunction with robots.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.945-950
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• 2015

A novel microstrip low-pass filter is presented to achieve an ultra-wide stopband with 11 harmonic suppression and very sharp skirt characteristics. The filter is composed of a modified U-shaped resonator (which creates two fully adjustable transmission zeroes), a T-shaped resonator (which determines a cut-off frequency), and four radial stubs (which provide a wider stopband). The operating mechanism of the filter is investigated based on a proposed equivalent-circuit model, and the role of each section of the proposed filter in creating null points is theoretically discussed in detail. The presented filter with 3 dB cut-off frequency ($f_c=2.35GHz$) has been fabricated and measured. Results show that a relative stopband bandwidth of 164% (referred to as a 22 dB suppression) is obtained while achieving a high figure-of-merit of 15,221.

• 전기의세계
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.50-58
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• 1982

As a method for improving the power factor and the waveform of ac line current drawn by ac to dc converters, converters of pulse-width control type with forced commutation circuits have been developed in recent years. However, these converters have rather complex commutation circuits which contain auxiliary thyristors in addition to the main thyristors, and their performance is not satisfactory. This paper proposes a new pulse-width controlled ac to dc converter, and analyses its commutation mechanism and its input and output characteristics. The proposed converter circuit consists of a usual thyristor bridge circuit with series diodes to which reactors and diodes are added. This circuit dose not contain auxiliary thyristors, and in this sense it is simpler than the previous converter circuits of pulse-width control type. Since the main thyristors of the converter can be forcedly turned off several times in a half cycle of source voltage, a pulse-width modulation control is possible in order to improve the current waveform as well as the power factor on ac line side. As to dc output side it is shown that the adjustable range of output voltage is wide and the voltage regulation is good due to a rapid reversal of voltage across the commutating capacitors by LC resonance during commutation period. It is also shown that the regenerative operation of the converter is possible.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers B
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2000

Switched reluctance motor(SRM) has simple magnetic structure, and requires simple power electronic driving circuit. It is very useful for wide range adjustable speed drive system. But, SRM drive generates large vibration and acoustic noise because it is commutated individually by step pulse m.m.f of each phase pole. In the vibration and acoustic noise characteristics. The considerable vibration and noise is induced by radial deforming of stator, so the frequency of dominant vibration and noise is coincident with the frequency of natural mode frequency of mechanical structure. This radial vibration force is generated in the phase commutation region. This paper suggests the new electromagnetic structure of SRM with auxiliary commutation winding which is excited by direct current. This phase and commutation winding are coupled magnetically between one phase winding and the other. Therefore, the switch-off phase current is absorbed by the another phase winding. By this interaction of phase and commutation winding in commutation mechanism, vibration and noise is reduced. And this reduction effect is examined by the test of prototype machine. As a result, SRM with DC exciting commutation winding is very useful to reduce vibration and acoustic noise.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.285-290
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• 2010

In this paper, a dynamic range(DR) extension technique based on a 3-transistor active pixel sensor(APS) and dual image sampling is proposed. The feature of the proposed APS is that the APS uses two or more photodiodes with different sensitivities, such as a high-sensitivity photodiode and a low-sensitivity photodiode. Compared with previously proposed wide DR(WDR) APS, the proposed approach has several advantages, such as no-external equipments or signal processing, no-additional time-requirement for additional charge accumulation, simple operation and adjustable DR extension by controlling parasitic capacitance and sensitivity of two photodiodes. Approximately 16 dB of DR extension was evaluated from the simulation for the situation of 10 times of sensitivity difference and the same size of parasitic capacitance between those two photodiodes.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.105-114
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• 2021

This paper describes a wind tunnel test on a 1:25 scale model of TTU building with several adjustable openings in order to comprehensively study the characteristics of fluctuating internal pressures, especially the phenomenon of the increase in fluctuating internal pressures induced by tangential flow over building openings and the mechanism causing that. The effects of several factors, such as wind angle, turbulence intensity, opening location, opening size, opening shape and background porosity on the fluctuating internal pressures at oblique wind angles are also described. It has been found that there is a large increase in the fluctuating internal pressures at certain oblique wind angles (typically around 60° to 80°). These fluctuations are greater than those produced by the flow normal to the opening when the turbulence intensity is low. It is demonstrated that the internal pressure resonances induced by the external pressure fluctuations emanating from flapping shear layers on the sidewall downstream of the windward corner are responsible for the increase in the fluctuating internal pressures. Furthermore, the test results show that apart from the opening shape, all the other factors influence the fluctuating internal pressures and the internal pressure resonances at oblique wind angles to varying degrees.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.469-475
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• 2017

Workers in industrial fields are highly exposed to accidents or injuries caused by long working hours. An exoskeleton that is able to support the arm muscles of the worker and thereby reduce the probability of an accident and enhance working efficiency could be a solution to this problem. However, existing exoskeletons demand the use of high-priced sensors and motors, which makes them difficult to use in industrial fields. To solve this problem, we developed an arm assisting exoskeleton that consists only of mechanical components without any electronic sensors or motors. The exoskeleton follows the movement of the human arm by shoulder joint and ankle joint. In addition, counterbalance mechanisms are installed on the exoskeleton to support arm strength. The experimental validation of the exoskeleton was conducted using an EMG sensor, confirming the performance of the exoskeleton.

• Journal of international Conference on Electrical Machines and Systems
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.330-335
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• 2012

Brushless doubly-fed machine (BDFM) doesn't use brush and slip ring, and has advantages such as high system reliability, small capacity of its frequency converter, low system cost, adjustable power factor and speed, etc. At the same time, it has good applicable potentials on the variable frequency motors and the variable speed constant frequency generators. However, due to the complicacy and particularity of BDFM in the structure and operating mechanism, the effect of magnetic field modulation directly influences the operating efficiency of BDFM. To study the effect of different cage rotor structures on the magnetic field modulation of BDFM, the rotor magnetomotive force (MMF) of BDFM with cage rotor is studied by the analytical method. The components and features of rotor harmonic MMFs are discussed. At the same time, the method to weaken the higher harmonics is analyzed by the theoretic formulae. Furthermore, the magnetic field modulation mechanism is expounded on in detail and the relationship between the magnetic field modulation effect and the operating efficiency of BDFM is established. And then, a new method for estimating the magnetic field modulation effect is proposed. At last, the magnetic field modulation effects of four BDFM prototypes with different cage rotor structures are compared by the MMF analysis and the efficiency data of electromagnetic design. The results verify the effectiveness of the new method for estimating the magnetic field modulation effect of BDFM with cage rotor.