• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.165-171
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• 2016

A prosthetic knee for above-knee (AK) amputee is categorized into passive and active type. The passive prosthetic knee is generally made by elastic material. Although AK amputee can easily walk by using passive prosthetic leg, knee joint motions are not similar to ordinary persons. The active prosthetic leg can control the knee angle owing to the actuator and microprocessor. However, the active type is not cost-effective and the stability may be lost due to the malfunction of sensors. In order to resolve these disadvantages of passive and active type, a semi-active prosthetic knee which can control the knee angle is proposed in this work. The proposed semi-active one requires a less input energy but provides active type performance. In order to achieve this goal, in this work, a semi-active prosthetic knee using magneto-rheological (MR) damper for AK amputees is designed. The MR damper can support the weight of body by using less energy than actuator of active prosthetic. It can control knee angle by inducing the magnetic field at the time of stance phase. This salient characteristic is evaluated and presented in this work.

• Journal of electromagnetic engineering and science
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.232-234
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• 2016

In this paper, the power transfer efficiencies (PTEs) of magnetic resonance (MR) wireless power transmission (WPT) and radio frequency (RF) WPT are compared as a function of the distances between resonators (or antennas). The PTE of the C-loaded loop resonators during MR WPT was theoretically calculated and simulated at 6.78MHz, showing good agreement. The PTE of the patch antennas, whose area is the same as the C-loaded loop resonator during MR WPT, was theoretically calculated using the Friis equation and the equation by N. Shinohara and simulated at 5.8 GHz. The three results from the Friis equation, the equation by N. Shinohara, and from a full wave simulation are in strong agreement. The PTEs, when using the same size resonators and antennas are compared by considering the distance between the receiver and transmitter. The compared results show that the MR WPT PTE is higher than that of the RF WPT PTE when the distance (r) between the resonators (or antennas) is shorter. However, the RF WPT PTE is much higher than that of the MR WPT PTE when the distance (r) between the resonators (or antennas) is longer since the RF WPT PTE is proportional to $r^{-2}$ while the MR WPT PTE is proportional to $r^{-6}$.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.2025-2035
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• 2014

The read range of UHF mobile readers can be extended by a booster for mobile RFID readers (BoMR). But in an environment where multiple BoMRs are installed, the read success rate may be decreased due to signal interference. This paper proposes three arbitration methods based on interference estimation with the purpose of enhancing the read success rate. A central arbitration server manages global information in centralized arbitration method (CAM) without broadcast/multicast communication facility. In fully distributed arbitration method (FDAM), all the arbitration messages are broadcasted from a BoMR to every BoMR, and each BoMR decides with broadcasted global information. Events in FDAM are serialized naturally with broadcasted messages. Cluster Distributed Arbitration Method (CDAM) forms clusters with multicasted BoMRs and a selected BoMR acts as an arbiter in the cluster. Such effects as lengthened read range, improved the read success rates of readers can be obtained by the proposed methods without any hardware modification. In order to evaluate the arbitration methods, the RFID system is modeled by using the DEVS formalism and simulated by using the DEVSim++.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.62-68
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• 2015

A magnetorheological (MR) fluid is a smart material whose rheological behavior can be controlled by varying the parameters of the applied magnetic field. Because the damping force and shear force of an MR fluid can be controlled using a magnetic field, it is widely employed in many industrial applications, such as in vehicle vibration control, powertrains, high-precision grinding processes, valves, and seals. However, the characteristics of friction caused by iron particles inside the MR fluid need to be understood and improved so that it can be used in practical applications. Surface process technologies such as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) coatings and diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings are widely used to improve the surface friction properties. This study examines the friction characteristics of an MR fluid with different surface process technologies such as PTFE coatings and DLC coatings, by using a reciprocating friction tester. The coefficients of friction are in the following descending order: MR fluid without any coating, MR fluid with a DLC coating, and MR fluid with a PTFE coating. Scanning electron microscopy is used to observe the worn surfaces before and after the experiment. In addition, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy is used to analyze the chemical composition of the worn surface. Through a comparison of the results, the friction characteristics of the MR fluid based on the different coating technologies are analyzed.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.4 no.5
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• pp.311-317
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• 2015

The aim of this study is to develop a 3D registration algorithm for positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) images acquired from independent PET/CT and MR imaging systems. Combined PET/CT images provide anatomic and functional information, and MR images have high resolution for soft tissue. With the registration technique, the strengths of each modality image can be combined to achieve higher performance in diagnosis and radiotherapy planning. The proposed method consists of two stages: normalized mutual information (NMI)-based global matching and independent component analysis (ICA)-based refinement. In global matching, the field of view of the CT and MR images are adjusted to the same size in the preprocessing step. Then, the target image is geometrically transformed, and the similarities between the two images are measured with NMI. The optimization step updates the transformation parameters to efficiently find the best matched parameter set. In the refinement stage, ICA planes from the windowed image slices are extracted and the similarity between the images is measured to determine the transformation parameters of the control points. B-spline. based freeform deformation is performed for the geometric transformation. The results show good agreement between PET/CT and MR images.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.69-76
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• 2000

Lots of semi-active control devices have been developed in recent years because they have the best features of passive and active system. Especially, controllable magneto-rheological(MR) fluid devices have received significant attention in these area of research. The MR fluid is the material that reversibly changes from a free-flowing, linear viscous fluid to a semisolid with a controllable yield strength in milliseconds when exposed to a magnetic field. If the magnetic field is induced by moving a permanent magnet instead of applying current to a solenoid, it is possible to design a MR damper consuming low power because the power consumption is reduced at steady state. This paper proposes valve mode MR damper using permanent magnetic circuit that has wide range of operation with low power consumption, a design parameter is adopted. The magnetic circuit, material of choke and choke type are selected experimentally with the design parameter. The behaviors of the damper are examined and torque tracking control using PID feedback controller is performed for step, ramp and sinusoidal trajectiories.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.53-74
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• 2016

This paper presents an experimental study on constructing a tunable secondary suspension for high-speed trains using magneto-rheological fluid dampers (referred to as MR dampers hereafter), in the interest of improving lateral ride comfort. Two types of MR dampers (type-A and type-B) with different control ranges are designed and fabricated. The developed dampers are incorporated into a secondary suspension of a full-scale high-speed train carriage for rolling-vibration tests. The integrated rail vehicle runs at a series of speeds from 40 to 380 km/h and with different current inputs to the MR dampers. The dynamic performance of the two suspension systems and the ride comfort rating of the rail vehicle are evaluated using the accelerations measured during the tests. In this way, the effectiveness of the developed MR dampers for attenuating vibration is assessed. The type-A MR dampers function like a stiffness component, rather than an energy dissipative device, during the tests with different running speeds. While, the type-B MR dampers exhibit significant damping and high current input to the dampers may adversely affect the ride comfort. As part of an ongoing investigation on devising an effective MR secondary suspension for lateral vibration suppression, this preliminary study provides an insight into dynamic behavior of high-speed train secondary suspensions and unique full-scale experimental data for optimal design of MR dampers suitable for high-speed rail applications.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.218-228
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• 2018

Purpose: The objective of this study is to determine the effect of physical changes on MR temperature imaging at 7.0T and to examine proton-resonance-frequency related changes of MR phase images and T1 related changes of MR magnitude images, which are obtained for MR thermometry at various magnetic field strengths. Materials and Methods: An MR-compatible capacitive-coupled radio-frequency hyperthermia system was implemented for heating a phantom and swine muscle tissue, which can be used for both 7.0T and 3.0T MRI. To determine the effect of flip angle correction on T1-based MR thermometry, proton resonance frequency, apparent T1, actual flip angle, and T1 images were obtained. For this purpose, three types of imaging sequences are used, namely, T1-weighted fast field echo with variable flip angle method, dual repetition time method, and variable flip angle method with radio-frequency field nonuniformity correction. Results: Signal-to-noise ratio of the proton resonance frequency shift-based temperature images obtained at 7.0T was five-fold higher than that at 3.0T. The T1 value increases with increasing temperature at both 3.0T and 7.0T. However, temperature measurement using apparent T1-based MR thermometry results in bias and error because B1 varies with temperature. After correcting for the effect of B1 changes, our experimental results confirmed that the calculated T1 increases with increasing temperature both at 3.0T and 7.0T. Conclusion: This study suggests that the temperature-induced flip angle variations need to be considered for accurate temperature measurements in T1-based MR thermometry.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.182-188
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• 2017

In this work, a new type speaker which features various resonant frequencies is proposed utilizing a magneto-rheological (MR) fluid and its performance is evaluated in terms of the change of the field-dependent sound pressure level. In order to achieve this goal, a whole concept of the speaker system is firstly discussed and subsequently a controllable diaphragm is made using MR fluid whose rheological properties such as viscosity are controllable by the magnitude of magnetic field. Then, the proposed speaker system consisting of the inner structure and the squeeze mode type of MR diaphragm is established in an anechoic room The effectiveness of the proposed speaker system is experimentally evaluated at two different conditions; with and without the magnetic field. It is shown from experimental tests that the sound pressure level at different sound source can be controlled which is not able to achieve using one conventional speaker system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.265-266
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• 2007