• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.445-450
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• 2005

In this paper, we suggest an integrated tactile display system that provides kinesthetic force, pressure distribution, vibration and slip/stretch. The system consists of two parts: a 2 DOF force feedback device for kinesthetic display and a tactile feedback device for displaying the normal stimulation to the skin and the skin slip/stretch. Psychophysical experiments measure the effects of fingerpad selection, the direction of finger movements and the texture width on tactile sensitivity. We also investigate the characteristics of lateral finger movement while subjects perceive different textures. From the experimental results, the principal parameters for designing a tactile display are suggested. A tactile display device, using eight piezoelectric bimorphs and a linear actuator, Is implemented and attached to a 2 DOF translational force feedback device to simultaneously simulate the texture and stiffness of the object. As a result, we find out that the capability of the suggested device is sufficient to display physical quantities to display the texture.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.22 no.11
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• pp.877-882
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• 2016

Disaster robots have accepted tele-operation in order to share the intelligence of human operators and robot systems. Virtual wall is one of the tele-operation technology to support recognition of human operator. If the virtual wall can block the robot from dangers, the operator will feel comfortable and can concentrate on fundamental missions. In this paper, we proposes and compares three methods for virtual wall visualization in tele-operation using 3D reconstruction. First is a virtual wall visualized only with edges. A wall filled with transparent color is the second method. Finally, third method is a texture-mapped virtual wall. In the experiments, we discuss their merits and demerits in view of robot tele-operation.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.59-65
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• 2012

In this research, a novel mater arm was studied as a teaching device for an underwater revolute robot arm used as a slave arm. The master arm was designed to be a seven-degree-of-freedom (DOF) structure, with a structure similar to that of the slave arm, and to be desktop size to allow it to be worn on a human arm. The master arm with encoders on the joints was used as an input device for teaching a slave robot arm. In addition, small electric magnets were installed at the joints of the master arm to generate the haptic force. A control system was designed to sense excessive force and torque in the joints of the master arm and protect it by controlling the position and velocity of the slave arm through the encoder signal of the master arm.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.363-370
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• 2013

Objective: This study investigates the influences of vibrations on hedonic satisfaction based on four kinds of perceptions (perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, cognitive concentration) when mobile gaming. Background: As mobile gaming is becoming more and more popular for smartphone users, they might want to have more hedonic satisfaction instead of focusing on traditional usability criteria such as efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction. Method: We conducted a human-factors experiment with 35 male subjects to evaluate hedonic satisfaction in the mobile game configured by 7 vibration types having different levels of intensity and length. Results: The results revealed that the use of vibration significantly increases the perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and cognitive concentration. In addition, the intensity of vibration makes differences of perceived usefulness and cognitive concentration. Conclusion: Vibration can be effectively used to improve hedonic satisfaction of smartphone users in mobile gaming when they are not allowed to turn the sound effects on. Application: This study helps game designers effectively provide vibration feedback of mobile games for smartphone users.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.9 no.8
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• pp.577-584
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• 2003

Traditional ankle rehabilitation procedures are tedious, repetitive, and require therapist's help. Therefore, they do not provide patients with good motivation to actively participate in the rehabilitation exercises. In addition, objective diagnosis and evaluation of the treatment progress have been difficult because records of exercise history are made by passive instruments from time to time. The virtual reality technology can make these procedures more fun so that patients can perform everyday rehabilitation exercises more actively. Moreover, haptics technology can give active resistance to the patients ankle motion to improve strength of muscles as well as can record ankle's motion and force histories for objective diagnosis and evaluation. This paper summarizes development of a virtual environment fur reforming the conventional ankle rehabilitation procedures. First of all, conventional rehabilitation procedures have been summarized. Secondly, haptic design and control, user interface design, virtual environment contents design are described. Lastly, mutual cooperation among many developers including medical doctors and therapists and future works are commented.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.9 no.8
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• pp.585-591
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• 2003

A virtual force is generated and fed back to the operator to make the teleoperation more reliable, which reflects the relationship between a slave robot and an uncertain remote environment as a form of an impedance. In general, for the teleoperation, the teleoperated mobile robot takes pictures of the remote environment and sends the visual information back to the operator over the Internet. Because of the limitations of communication bandwidth and narrow view-angles of camera, it is not possible to watch certain regions, for examples, the shadow and curved areas. To overcome this problem, a virtual force is generated according to both the distance between the obstacle and the robot and the approaching velocity of the obstacle w.r.t the collision vector based on the ultrasonic sensor data. This virtual force is transferred back to the master (two degrees of freedom joystick) over the Internet to enable a human operator to estimate the position of obstacle at the remote site. By holding this master, in spite of limited visual information, the operator can feel the spatial sense against the remote environment. It is demonstrated by experiments that this collision vector based haptic reflection improves the performance of teleoperated mobile robot significantly.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.121-127
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• 2012

When people are asked to described certain textiles, they frequently refer to the expressions of its properties such as attractiveness, uniqueness, shininess, robustness, comfortability, and so on. It shows how senses play important role in it. Human employs their senses when interacting with textiles, most notably visual and tactile/ haptic to absorb its expressive properties. Yet, our sensorial experiences may amplify when interacting with those of traditional textiles, such as batik, as we can entice sensations when seeing its motifs and patterns, smelling its materials, and touching its surfaces. The multi-sensorial importance of seeing, smelling, and touching in the interaction with and experience of textiles suggests that one should address senses in a systematic way when evaluating users' perception on traditional textiles. To address this issue, the paper proposes the incorporation of Kansei Engineering (KE) approach for identifying multi-sensorial experiences on the expressive properties of traditional textiles, using batik as a case of study. KE approach address person's psychological understanding when observing things in order to analyze and study the inherent relationship between person's perceptual knowledge and objects evaluated. This paper outlines the use of KE approach in correlating sensorial perceptions when experience with traditional textiles and ultimately expose users' preferences toward them. Background of KE approach on textiles will be explored and its application for the multi-sensorial investigation of traditional textiles will be discussed.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.179-186
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• 2008

This paper presents a portable tele-assessment system designed for remote evaluation of the hypertonic elbow joint of neurologically impaired patients. A patient's upper limb was securely strapped to a portable limb-stretching device which is connected through Internet to a portable haptic device by which a clinician remotely moved the patient's elbow joint and felt the resistance from the patient. Elbow flexion angle and joint torques were measured from both master and slave devices and bilaterally fed back to their counterparts. In order to overcome problems associated with the network latency, two different tele-operation schemes were proposed depending on relative speed of tasks compared to the amount of time delay. For slow movement tasks, the bilateral tele-operation was achieved in real-time by designing control architectures after causality analysis. For fast movement tasks, we used a semi-real-time tele-operation scheme which provided the clinicians with stable and transparent feeling. The tele-assessment system was verified experimentally on patients with stroke. The devices were made portable and low cost, which makes it potentially more accessible to patients in remote areas.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.65 no.7
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• pp.1263-1269
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• 2016

Hearing impaired persons are exposed to the danger since they can't be aware of many dangerous situations like fire alarms, car hones and so on. Therefore they need haptic or visual informations when they meet dangerous situations. In this paper, we design a dangerous sound detection engine for hearing impaired. We consider four dangerous indoor situations such as a boiled sound of kettle, a fire alarm, a door bell and a phone ringing. For outdoor, two dangerous situations such as a car horn and a siren of emergency vehicle are considered. For a test, 6 data sets are collected from those six situations. we extract LPC, LPCC and MFCC as feature vectors from the collected data and compare the vectors for feasibility. Finally we design a matching engine using an artificial neural network and perform classification tests. We perform classification tests for 3 times considering the use outdoors and indoors. The test result shows the feasibility for the dangerous sound detection.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1290-1303
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• 2005

In this research, a remote control system has been developed and implemented, which combines autonomous obstacle avoidance in real-time with force-reflective tele-operation. A tele-operated mobile robot is controlled by a local two-degrees-of-freedom force-reflective joystick that a human operator holds while he is monitoring the screen. In the system, the force-reflective joystick transforms the relation between a mobile robot and the environment to the operator as a virtual force which is generated in the form of a new collision vector and reflected to the operator. This reflected force makes the tele-operation of a mobile robot safe from collision in an uncertain and obstacle-cluttered remote environment. A mobile robot controlled by a local operator usually takes pictures of remote environments and sends the images back to the operator over the Internet. Because of limitations of communication bandwidth and the narrow view-angles of the camera, the operator cannot observe shadow regions and curved spaces frequently. To overcome this problem, a new form of virtual force is generated along the collision vector according to both distance and approaching velocity between an obstacle and the mobile robot, which is obtained from ultrasonic sensors. This virtual force is transferred back to the two-degrees-of-freedom master joystick over the Internet to enable a human operator to feel the geometrical relation between the mobile robot and the obstacle. It is demonstrated by experiments that this haptic reflection improves the performance of a tele-operated mobile robot significantly.