• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.41-47
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• 2017

To implement Argentina tango dancer-like walking of the humanoid robot, a new trajectory generation scheme based on particle swarm optimization of the blending polynomial is presented. Firstly, the characteristics of Argentina tango walking are derived from observation of tango dance. Secondly, these are reflected in walking pose conditions and cost functions of particle swarm optimization to determine the coefficients of blending polynomial. For the stability of biped walking, zero moment point and reference trajectory of swing foot are also included in cost function. Thirdly, after tango walking cycle is divided into 3 stages with 2 postures, optimal trajectories of ankles, knees and hip of lower body, which include 6 sagittal and 4 coronal angles, are derived in consequence of optimization. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed scheme is validated by simulating biped walking of humanoid robot with derived trajectories under the 3D Simscape environment.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.130-140
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• 2011

This paper proposes an optimal posture for the task-oriented movement of dual arm manipulator. A stability criterion function which consists of three kinds of feature-representative parameters has been utilized to define the optimal posture. The first parameter is the force which is applied to the object. The torque of each joint and position of arm are attained from the current sensor and encoder, respectively. From these two data, the applied force to an object is estimated using sum of vectors of the joint torques estimated from the measured current. In order to investigate the robustness of each posture, the variation of the end-effector from the encoder information has been utilized as the second parameter. And for the last parameter for the optimality, the total energy consumption has been used. The total consuming energy of each posture can be computed from the current information and the battery voltage. The proposed robot structure consists of a mobile inverted pendulum and dual manipulators. In order to define the optimal posture for the each object, external disturbances are applied to the mobile inverted pendulum robot and the first and second parameters are investigated to find the optimal posture among the pre-selected most representative postures. Finally, the proposed optimal posture has been verified by the proposed stability criterion function which consists of total force to the object, the fluctuation of the end-effector position, and total energy consumption. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms has been verified and demonstrated through the practical simulations and real experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.5-8
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• 2018

Patients who have the head and neck cancer are usually treated by surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, or combinations of them. These treatments can induce variable degree of aspiration with dysphagia. The type and severity of aspiration depends on the size and location of the original tumor, the structures involved, and the treatment modality used for treatment. The management of aspiration after the head and neck cancer's treatment begins with an accurate evaluation for the cause and mechanism of aspiration through modified barium swallow (MBS) and fiberoptic endoscopic examination of swallowing (FEES). Then, the clinician can use postures, maneuvers, and exercises to treat the swallow disorder and to help the patient achieve optimal function. To achieve optimal swallowing without aspiration, multidimensional rehabilitation by various medical personnel is definitely necessary.

• Journal of Korean Physical Therapy Science
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.56-63
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• 2017

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the effects of sitting posture on cervical flexion angle and pain during smart phone use. Method: This research was performed on 10 adult female students who use smart phones regularly, Each of the two groups of participants used the provided smart phone for 20 minutes while maintaining the given default posture. The evaluation order was randomly selected and the two groups were photographed twice before and after the experiment and were asked to answer if they felt pain during or after the experiment. Result: First, both upright sitting position and vertebra bent position pre and post experiment readings showed significant statistical difference (p<.05). And it is shown to be a factor that induces pain around the neck via increase in neck flexion angle. Second, although there were no significant statistical difference between the pre and post experiment readings of the upright sitting position results and the vertebra bent position results, the vertebra bent position readings showed bigger changes to the neck flexion angle then the upright sitting position readings. Third, all participants from both groups claimed pain in all the tested postures of smart phone usage. Conclusion: Smart phone usage for an extended amount of time in all body postures may prove to have a negative effect making the "optimal" smart phone usage position as a controlled time with neck stretches included in between short sessions.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.317-325
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• 2008

The electrocardiogram (ECG) measurement system consists of I/O interface to input the ECG signals from two electrodes, FPGA (Field programmable gate arrays) module to process the signal conditioning, and real time module to control the system. The algorithms based on wavelet transform were developed to remove the noise of the ECG signals and to determine the QRS-waves. Triangular wave tests were conducted to determine the optimal factors of the wavelet filter by analyzing the SNRs (signal to noise ratios) and RMSEs (root mean square errors). The hybrid rule, soft method, and symlets of order 5 were selected as thresholding rule, thresholding method, and mother wavelet, respectively. The developed wavelet filter showed good performance to remove the noise of the triangular waves with 10.98 dB of SNR and 0.140 mV of RMSE. The ECG signals from a total of 6 subjects were measured at different measuring postures such as lying, sitting, and standing. The durations of QRS-waves, the amplitudes of R-waves, the intervals of RR-waves were analyzed by using the finite impulse response (FIR) filter and the developed wavelet filter. The wavelet filter showed good performance to determine the features of QRS-waves, but the FIR filter had some problems to detect the peaks of Q and S waves. The measuring postures affected accuracy and precision of the ECG signals. The noises of the ECG signals were increased due to the movement of the subject during measurement. The results showed that the wavelet filter was a useful tool to remove the noise of the ECG signals and to determine the features of the QRS-waves.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.65-79
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• 1994

A biomechanical model of lower extremity in seated postures was developed to assess muscular activities of lower extremity involved in a variety of foot pedal operations. The model incorporated four rigid body segments with the twenty-four muscles to represent lower extremity. This study deals with quasi-static movement to investigate dymanic movement effect in seated foot operation. It is found that optimization method which has been used for modeling the articulated body segments does not predict the forces generated from biarticular muscles and antagonistic muscles reasonably. So, the revised nonlinear optimization scheme was employed to consider the synergistic effects of biarticular muscles and the antagonistic muscle effects from the stabilization of the joint. For the model validation, three male subjects performen the experiments in which EMG activities of the nine lower extremity muscles were measured. Predicted muscle forces were compared with the corresponding EMG amplitudes and it showed no statistical difference. For the selection of optimal seated posture, a physiological meaningful criterion for muscular load sharing developed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.87-93
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• 2019

This research deals with posture optimization for humanoid robot against external forces using genetic algorithm and neural network. When the robot takes a motion to push an object, the torque of each joint is generated by reaction force at the palm. This study aims to optimize the posture of the humanoid robot that will change this torque. This study finds an optimized posture using a genetic algorithm such that torques are evenly distributed over the all joints. Then, a number of different optimized postures are generated from various the reaction forces at the palm. The data is to be used as training data of MLP(Multi-Layer Perceptron) neural network with BP(Back Propagation) learning algorithm. Humanoid robot can find the optimal posture at different reaction forces in real time using the trained neural network include non-training data.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.110 no.2
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• pp.210-216
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• 2021

Musculoskeletal disorders affect workers' safety in most industries, and forest operations are classified as a musculoskeletal burden according to the Occupational Safety and Health Act in South Korea. In particular, felling and delimbing operations are mainly conducted by manpower, and then, it is necessary to evaluate ergonomic risk assessment for safety of felling and delimbing workers. Three ergonomic risk assessment methods, such as Ovako Working posture Analysis System (OWAS), Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA), and Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA), are available for assessing exposure to risk factors associated with timber harvesting operations. Here, three ergonomic risk assessment methods were applied to examine ergonomic risk assessments in chainsaw felling and delimbing operations. Additionally, exposure to risk factors in each method was analyzed to propose an optimal working posture in felling and delimbing operations. The risk levels of these operations were evaluated to be highest in the RULA method, followed by the OWAS and REBA methods, and most of the exposed working postures were examined with a low-risk level of two and three without requiring any immediate working posture changes. However, two significant working postures, including the bending posture of the waist and leg in felling operation and standing posture on the fallen trees in delimbing operation, were assessed as the high-risk level and needed immediate working posture changes. Low-risk work levels were examined in the squatting posture for felling operation and the straightened posture of the waist and leg for delimbing operation. Moreover, the slope in felling operation and the tree height in delimbing operation significantly affected risk level assessment of working posture. Therefore, our study supports that felling and delimbing workers must operate with low-risk working postures for safety.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.83-91
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• 1979

This study was conducted in order to find out the performance of rice transplanters in accordance with the change of the trans-planting days after pudding and the water depth flooding the paddy field at the time of transplanting : and thus to select the optimum paddy field preparation procedures for an efficient utilization of rice transplanters. The performance factors of the two different types of rice transplanters were measured during the first 6 consecutive days after puddling and with 3 different levels of water depth flooding the paddy fields. The results of this study were analysed and summarized as follows : 1. Wheel sinkage decreased very rapidly from 0 to 2 days after puddling and slowly from 3 to 5 days after puddling. 2. The depth of the test cone penetration decreased rapidly during the first few days after puddling. It was 17.8cm just after puddling, and decreased to 13.4cm one day after puddling. After 2 days, the rate of decrease was dampened, and after 5 days it kept constant value of 9.2cm. 3. Two days after puddling, the hill interval was 15.8cm (98.75% of the preset value) for broadcasted seedling rice transplanter with 3cm flooding depth : This value was the closest to the pre-adjusted value of 16cm. The general performance of broadcasted-seedling type rice transplanter was better than that of strip-seedling type rice transplanter. 4. Usually the working performance of a rice transplanter is evaluated with uniformity and adjustability of the hill intervals. The hill interval was the most uniform and closest to the pre-set value of 16cm when planted two days after puddling with 3cm of water depth. When it was inavoidable to plant 4 days after puddling with stripseedling type rice transplanter, it is advisable to let the water flooded somewhat deeper. 5. The percentage of missing hills including floating and burried seedlings was the highest just after puddling and ie decreased substancially until 3 days after puddling and then it increased again. Hence, the optimal time transplanting is to be between 2 and 3 days after puddling. 6. Better postures of planted seedlings were found when planter 2 days after puddling than 3 days after puddling. Six cm of flooding water depth always gave the best results with respect to the postures of planted seedlings. Broadcasted-seedling rice transplanter, in general, showed better posture of planted seedlings than did strip-seedling type rice transplanter. 7. Judging from the above results, the optimal conditions will be 3cm of flooding depth and transplanting between 2 and 3 days after puddling.

• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.9-15
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• 2017

The steering systems of all-terrain cranes have been developed with various control strategies for the stability and drivability. To optimally control the input steering angle, an accurate mathematical model that represents the actual crane dynamics is required. The derivation of an accurate mathematical model to optimally control the steering angle, however, is difficult since the steering-control strategy generally varies with the magnitude of the crane's longitudinal velocity, and the postures of the crane's working parts vary while it is being driven. To address this problem, this paper proposes an automatic steering-control algorithm that is based on the MPC (model predictive control) with a disturbance observer for all-terrain cranes. The designed disturbance observer of this study was used to estimate the error between the base steering model and the actual crane. A model predictive controller was used for the computation of the optimal steering angle, along with the use of the base steering model with an estimated uncertainty. Performance evaluations of the designed control algorithms were conducted based on a curved-path scenario in the Matlab/Simulink environment. The performance-evaluation results show a sound reference-path-tracking performance despite the large uncertainties.