• The KIPS Transactions:PartA
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• v.16A no.4
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• pp.255-262
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• 2009

We present an autonomous entertainment dolphin robot system based on ubiquitous sensor networks(USN). Generally, It is impossible to apply to USN and GPS in underwater bio-mimetic robots. But An Entertainment dolphin robot which presented in this paper operates on the water not underwater. Navigation of the underwater robot in a given area is based on GPS data and the acquired position information from deployed USN motes with emphasis on user interaction. Body structures, sensors and actuators, governing microcontroller boards, and swimming and interaction features are described for a typical entertainment dolphin robot. Actions of mouth-opening, tail splash or water blow through a spout hole are typical responses of interaction when touch sensors on the body detect users' demand. Dolphin robots should turn towards people who demand to interact with them, while swimming autonomously. The functions that are relevant to human-robot interaction as well as robot movement such as path control, obstacle detection and avoidance are managed by microcontrollers on the robot for autonomy. Distance errors are calibrated periodically by the known position data of the deployed USN motes.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.74-85
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• 2015

The positive effect of percussion instruments can induce increases in self-esteem and decreases in depression in the elderly. Based on this, the content for a percussion instrument robot that the elderly can use to play music is developed. The elements of the interaction between the elderly and the robot through the robot content are extracted. Music that arouses positive memories in the elderly is selected as part of the music therapy robot content in order to relieve depression, and a scoring system for playing music is constructed. In addition, the interaction components of the robot's facial expressions, which stimulate emotions and sensitivity in the elderly, are also designed. These components enable the elderly to take an active part in using the instrument to change the robot's facial expressions, which have three degrees of emotion: neutral-happy, happy, and very happy. The robot is not only a music game machine: it also maximizes the relief of depression in the elderly through interactions with the robot that allow the elderly person to listen to what the robot plays and through the elderly person becoming involved and playing music along with the robot.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.65-75
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• 2012

This study deals with the design of a spring backboned soft arm, which will be employed for generation of human gesture as an effective means of Human Robot interaction. The special features of the proposed mechanism are the light weight and the flexibility of the whole mechanism by using a spring backbone. Thus, even in the case of collision with human, this device is able to absorb the impact structurally. The kinematics and the design for the soft arm are introduced. The performance of this mechanism was shown through experiment emulating several human gestures expressing human emotion and some service contents. Finally, this soft arm was implemented as the wing mechanism of a penguin robot.

• 한국HCI학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.02a
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• pp.140-145
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• 2009

Significant attention has recently been drawn to human robot interaction system that uses face detection technology. The most conventional face detection methods have applied under pixel domain. These pixel based face detection methods require high computational power. Hence, the conventional methods do not satisfy the robot environment that requires robot to operate in a limited computing process and saving space. Also, compensating the variation of illumination is important and necessary for reliable face detection. In this paper, we propose the illumination invariant face detection that is performed under the compressed domain. The proposed method uses color balancing module to compensate illumination variation. Experiments show that the proposed face detection method can effectively increase the face detection rate under existing illumination.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.61-69
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• 2015

In this paper, we propose and examine the feasibility of the robot-assisted behavioral intervention system so as to strengthen positive response of the children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) for learning social skills. Based on well-known behavioral treatment protocols, the robot offers therapeutic training elements of eye contact and emotion reading respectively in child-robot interaction, and it subsequently accomplishes pre-allocated meaningful acts by estimating the level of children's reactivity from reliable recognition modules, as a coping strategy. Furthermore, for the purpose of labor saving and attracting children's interest, we implemented the robotic stimulation configuration with semi-autonomous actions capable of inducing intimacy and tension to children in instructional trials. From these configurations, by evaluating the ability of recognizing human activity as well as by showing improved reactivity for social training, we verified that the proposed system has some positive effects on social development, targeted for preschoolers who have a high functioning level.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.376-384
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• 2017

In this paper, we describe a case of using robot technology in child studies to examine children's judgement and reasoning of the life phenomenon on boundary objects. In order to control the effects of the appearance of the robot, which children observe or interact directly with, on the children's judgement and reasoning of the life phenomenon, we developed a robot similar to human. Unit experimental scenarios representing biological and psychological properties were implemented based on control of robot's motion, speech, and facial expressions. Experimenters could combine these multiple unit scenarios in a cascade to implement various scenarios of the human-robot interaction. Considering that the experimenters are researchers of child studies, there was a need to develop a remote operation console that can be easily used by non-experts in the robot field. Using the developed robot platform, researchers of child studies could implement various scenarios by manipulating the biological and psychological properties of the robot based on their research hypothesis. As a result, we could clearly see the effects of robot's properties on children's understanding about boundary object like robots.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.220-229
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• 2011

This paper focuses on a development of an anthropomorphic robot hand. Human hand is able to dexterously grasp and manipulate various objects with not accurate and sufficient, but inaccurate and scarce information of target objects. In order to realize the ability of human hand, we develop a robot hand and introduce a control scheme for stable grasping by using only kinematic information. The developed anthropomorphic robot hand, KITECH Hand, has one thumb and three fingers. Each of them has 4 DOF and a soft hemispherical finger tip for flexible opposition and rolling on object surfaces. In addition to a thumb and finger, it has a palm module composed the non-slip pad to prevent slip phenomena between the object and palm. The introduced control scheme is a quitely simple based on the principle of virtual work, which consists of transposed Jacobian, joint angular position, and velocity obtained by joint angle measurements. During interaction between the robot hand and an object, the developed robot hand shows compliant grasping motions by the back-drivable characteristics of equipped actuator modules. To validate the feasibility of the developed robot hand and introduced control scheme, collective experiments are carried out with the developed robot hand, KITECH Hand.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.86-96
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• 2011

The human-following is one of the significant procedure in human-friendly navigation of mobile robots. There are many approaches of human-following technology. Many approaches have adopted various multiple sensors such as vision system and Laser Range Finder (LRF). In this paper, we propose detection and tracking approaches for human legs by the use of a single LRF. We extract four simple attributes of human legs. To define the boundary of extracted attributes mathematically, we used a Support Vector Data Description (SVDD) scheme. We establish an efficient leg-tracking scheme by exploiting a human walking model to achieve robust tracking under occlusions. The proposed approaches were successfully verified through various experiments.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.142-150
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• 2006

This study examines whether the reinforcement theory would be effectively applied to teaching assistant robots between a robot and a student in the same way as it is applied to teaching methods between a teacher and a student. Participants interact with a teaching assistant robot in a 3 (types of robots: positive reinforcement vs. negative reinforcement vs. both reinforcements) by 2 (types of participants: honor students vs. backward students), within-subject experiment. Three different types of robots, such as 'Ching-chan-ee' which gives 'positive reinforcement', 'Um-bul-ee' which gives 'negative reinforcement', and 'Sang-bul-ee' which gives both 'positive and negative reinforcement' are designed based on the reinforcement theory and the token reinforcement system. Participants' task performance and reaction rate are measured according to the types of robots and the types of participants. In task performance, the negative reinforcement robot is more effective than the other two types, but regarding the number of stimulus, the less the stimulus is, the more effective the task performance is. Also, participants showed the highest reaction rate on the negative reinforcement robot which implies that the negative reinforcement robot is most effective to motivate students. The findings demonstrate that the participants perceive the teaching assistant robot not as a toy but as a teaching assistant and the reinforcement interaction is important and effective for teaching assistant robots to motivate students. The results of this study can be implicated as an effective guideline to interaction design of teaching assistant robots.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.32 no.10
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• pp.857-863
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• 2015

The need for human body posture robots has led researchers to develop dexterous design of exoskeleton robots. Quantitative techniques to assess human motor function and generate commands for robots were required to be developed. In this paper, we present a passivity based adaptive control algorithm for upper limb assist exoskeleton. The proposed algorithm can adapt to different subject parameters and provide efficient response against the biomechanical variations caused by subject variations. Furthermore, we have employed the Particle Swarm Optimization technique to tune the controller gains. Efficacy of the proposed algorithm method is experimentally demonstrated using a seven degree of freedom upper limb assist exoskeleton robot. The proposed algorithm was found to estimate the desired motion and assist accordingly. This algorithm in conjunction with an upper limb assist exoskeleton robot may be very useful for elderly people to perform daily tasks.