• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.415-422
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• 2020

This study investigates the relationship between muscular strengths and gait characteristics of the elderly. Totally, 107 subjects, aged 65 to 85 years, participated in this study. Researchers measured muscle strengths (grip force, toe grip force, gluteus medius, and gluteus maximus forces) and walking characteristics (walking speed, cadence, step length, single leg support, and double legs support). Dynamometers and inertial measurement unit-based shoe systems were used for measuring muscular strength and gait characteristics, respectively. No significant difference was observed in strengths and walking characteristics between the young elders (YE, 65-74 years) and the old elders (OE, 75-85 years). For each age, muscular strength significantly correlated with some gait parameters. Forces of gluteus medius and gluteus maximus muscles showed better significant correlations between some gait parameters for all age groups, as compared to grip force and toe grip force. Regression coefficients between walking speed and grip force did not vary with age. We conclude that muscular strengths in OE better explained the gait characteristics than in YE subjects. Even though grip strength is an easily measured variable for senior fitness test, forces of gluteus medius and gluteus maximus muscles are more meaningful for understanding the walking characteristics of elderly people.

• Smart Media Journal
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.31-38
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• 2021

It is hard to predict when and where a fall accident will happen. Also, if rapid follow-up measures on it are not performed, a fall accident leads to a threat of life, so studies that can automatically detect a fall accident have become necessary. Among automatic fall-accident detection techniques, a fall detection scheme using an IMU (inertial measurement unit) sensor attached to a wrist is difficult to detect a fall accident due to its movement, but it is recognized as a technique that is easy to wear and has excellent accessibility. To overcome the difficulty in obtaining fall data, this study proposes an algorithm that efficiently learns less data through machine learning such as KNN (k-nearest neighbors) and SVM (support vector machine). In addition, to improve the performance of these mathematical classifiers, this study utilized feature data aquired in the frequency space. The proposed algorithm analyzed the effect by diversifying the parameters of the model and the parameters of the frequency feature extractor through experiments using standard datasets. The proposed algorithm could adequately cope with a realistic problem that fall data are difficult to obtain. Because it is lighter than other classifiers, this algorithm was also easy to implement in small embedded systems where SIMD (single instruction multiple data) processing devices were difficult to mount.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.40-51
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• 2021

MLS (Mobile Laser Scanning) which is a scanning method done by moving the LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is widely employed to capture indoor PCD (Point Cloud Data) for floor plan generation in the AEC (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction) industry. The movement and rotation of LiDAR in the scanning phase cause deformation (i.e. skew) of PCD and impose a significant impact on quality of output. Thus, a de-skewing method is required to increase the accuracy of geometric representation. De-skewing methods which use position and pose information of LiDAR collected by IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) have been mainly developed to refine the PCD. However, the existing methods have limitations on de-skewing PCD without IMU. In this study, a novel algorithm for de-skewing 2D PCD captured from MLS without IMU is presented. The algorithm de-skews PCD using scan matching between points captured from adjacent scan positions. Based on the comparison of the deskewed floor plan with the benchmark derived from TLS (Terrestrial Laser Scanning), the performance of proposed algorithm is verified by reducing the average mismatched area 49.82%. The result of this study shows that the accurate floor plan is generated by the de-skewing algorithm without IMU.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.168-177
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• 2019

KRISO (Korea Research Institute of Ship & Ocean Engineering) started a project to develop the core algorithms for autonomous intervention using an underwater robot in 2017. This paper introduces the development of the robot platform for the core algorithms, which is an ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) type with one 7-function manipulator. Before the detailed design of the robot platform, the 7E-MINI arm of the ECA Group was selected as the manipulator. It is an electrical type, with a weight of 51 kg in air (30 kg in water) and a full reach of 1.4 m. To design a platform with a small size and light weight to fit in a water tank, the medium-size manipulator was placed on the center of platform, and the structural analysis of the body frame was conducted by ABAQUS. The robot had an IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), a DVL (Doppler Velocity Log), and a depth sensor for measuring the underwater position and attitude. To control the robot motion, eight thrusters were installed, four for vertical and the rest for horizontal motion. The operation system was composed of an on-board control station and operation S/W. The former included devices such as a 300 VDC power supplier, Fiber-Optic (F/O) to Ethernet communication converter, and main control PC. The latter was developed using an ROS (Robot Operation System) based on Linux. The basic performance of the manufactured robot platform was verified through a water tank test, where the robot was manually operated using a joystick, and the robot motion and attitude variation that resulted from the manipulator movement were closely observed.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.365-372
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• 2022

Compared to sensors mainly used in human activity recognition (HAR) systems, inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors are small and light, so can achieve lightweight system at low cost. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a binary neural network (BNN) based gait pattern analysis system using IMU sensor, and present the design and implementation results of an FPGA-based accelerator for computational acceleration. Six signals for gait are measured through IMU sensor, and a spectrogram is extracted using a short-time Fourier transform. In order to have a lightweight system with high accuracy, a BNN-based structure was used for gait pattern classification. It is designed as a hardware accelerator structure using FPGA for computation acceleration of binary neural network. The proposed gait pattern analysis system was implemented using 24,158 logics, 14,669 registers, and 13.687 KB of block memory, and it was confirmed that the operation was completed within 1.5 ms at the maximum operating frequency of 62.35 MHz and real-time operation was possible.