• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.29 no.7 s.238
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• pp.1005-1012
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• 2005

An OHT(Over Head Transportation) vehicle is an example of the industrial monorail vehicle, and it is used in the automobile, semiconductor, LCD manufacturing industries. OHT vehicle is moved by main wheels and guide rollers. The major function of the main wheel is to support and drive the OHT vehicle. The roles of the guide roller is the inhibition of derailment and steering of the OHT vehicle. Since the required vehicle velocity becomes faster and the required load capacity is increased, the durability characteristics of the wheel and roller, which was made of urethane, need to be increased. So it is necessary to estimate the fatigue life cycle of the wheel and roller. In this study, OHT dynamic model was developed by using the multi body dynamic analysis program ADAMS. Wheel and roller are modeled by the 3-D surface contact module. Especially, motor cycle tire mechanics is used in the wheel contact model. The OHT dynamic model can analyze the dynamic characteristic of the OHT vehicle with various driving conditions. And the result was verified by a vehicle traveling test. As a result of this study, the developed model is expected to predict wheel dynamic load time history and makes a contribution to design of a new monorail vehicle.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.1021-1028
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• 2011

The objective of this paper is to optimize the design parameters of a novel mechanism for a robotic knee orthosis. The feature of the proposed knee othosis is to drive a knee joint with independent actuation during swing and stance phases, which can allow an actuator with fast rotation to control swing motions and an actuator with high torque to control stance motions, respectively. The quadriceps device operates in five-bar links with 2-DOF motions during swing phase and is changed to six-bar links during stance phase by the contact motion to the patella device. The hamstring device operates in a slider-crank mechanism for entire gait cycle. The suggested kinematic model will allow a robotic knee orthosis to use compact and light actuators with full support during walking. However, the proposed orthosis must use additional linkages than a simple four-bar mechanism. To maximize the benefit of reducing the actuators power by using the developed kinematic design, it is necessary to minimize total weight of the device, while keeping necessary actuator performances of torques and angular velocities for support. In this paper, we use a SGA (Simple Genetic Algorithm) to minimize sum of total link lengths and motor power by reducing the weight of the novel knee orthosis. To find feasible parameters, kinematic constraints of the hamstring and quadriceps mechanisms have been applied to the algorithm. The proposed optimization scheme could reduce sum of total link lengths to half of the initial value. The proposed optimization scheme can be applied to reduce total weight of general multi-linkages while keeping necessary actuator specifications.