• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.17 no.12
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• pp.169-175
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• 2000

Stable and comfortable walking supports, which can reduce the body weight load partially, are needed for the recovering patients from neurologic disease and orthopedic procedures. In this paper, the development of a manipulator of rehabilitation robot for the patients with walking disabilities are studied. A force controller using pneumatic actuators is designed and implemented to the human friendly rehabilitation robot considering the safety of patients, reliability of the system, effectiveness of the unloading control and economic maintenance of the system. The mechanism of the unloading manipulator is devised to improve the sensibility for the movement of the patients such as direction and velocity. For the unloading force control, fuzzy control algorithm is adopted to reduce the partial body weight and suppress the unwanted fluctuation of the body weight load to the weak legs due to the unnatural working of the patients with walking disabilities. The effectiveness of the force control is experimentally demonstrated.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.13-20
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• 2000

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.524-529
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• 2016

We describe the design and fabrication of a two-axis force/torque sensor with parallel-plate beams (PPBs) and single beams for measuring force and torque in hip-joint rehabilitation exercise using a lower rehabilitation robot. The two-axis force/torque sensor is composed of an Fz force sensor and a Tz torque sensor, which detect z direction force and z direction torque, respectively. The two-axis force/torque sensor was designed using the FEM (Finite Element Method) and manufactured using strain gages. The characteristics experiment of the two-axis force/torque sensor was carried out. The test results show that the interference error of the two-axis force/torque sensor was less than 0.64% and the repeatability error and the non-linearity of the two-axis force/torque sensor were less than 0.03%. It is thought that the developed two-axis force/torque sensor could be used for a lower rehabilitation robot.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.195-203
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• 2013

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of early Robot-assisted training on gait ability, function and ADL in patients with stroke. Methods: 26 patients with stroke were recruited for this study. The subjects were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (EG) or the control group (CG), with 13 patients in each group. All subjects received a routine physical therapy. The robot-assisted training was for 30 min in the case of the EG subjects. The assessment tools of this study involved the gait ability, balance ability, function and ADL. The measurements were recorded before the intervention and after the intervention. Results: EG subjects and CG subjects, the variables measured after the intervention significantly differed from gait ability, balance ability, function and ADL without the FMA (p<0.05). The FMA was only effective experimental group after intervention. Also, there were significant differences in gait ability, balance ability, function and ADL without the FMA at post-test between the 2 groups (p<0.05). Conclusion: The findings indicate that early robot-assisted training exerts a positive effect on gait ability, balance ability, function and ADL in patients with stroke. This result indicates the possibility of application of the early Robot-assisted training to the management for stroke patients. Further studies are required to generalize the result for this study.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.939-947
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• 2010

With the rising numbers of elderly and disabled people, the demand for welfare services using a robotic system and not involving human effort is likewise increasing. This study deals with a mobile-robot system combined with a BWS (Body Weight Support) system for gait rehabilitation. The BWS system is designed via the kinematic analysis of the robot's body-lifting characteristics and of the walking guide system that controls the total rehabilitation system integrated in the mobile robot. This mobile platform is operated by utilizing the AGV (Autonomous Guided Vehicle) driving algorithm. Especially, the method that integrates geometric path tracking and obstacle avoidance for a nonholonomic mobile robot is applied so that the system can be operated in an area where the elderly users are expected to be situated, such as in a public hospital or a rehabilitation center. The mobile robot follows the path by moving through the turning radius supplied by the pure-pursuit method which is one of the existing geometric path-tracking methods. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through the real experiments those are conducted for path tracking with static- and dynamic-obstacle avoidance. Finally, through the EMG (Electromyography) signal measurement of the subject, the performance of the proposed system in a real operation condition is evaluated.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.93-98
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• 2019

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of robot arm reach training on upper extremity functional movement in chronic stroke survivors. Design: One group pretest-posttest design. Methods: Thirteen chronic stroke survivors participated in this study. Robot arm reach training was performed with a Whole Arm Manipulator (WAM) and a 120-inch projective display to provide visual and auditory feedback. During the robotic arm reach training, WAM provided gravity compensation and assist-as-needed (AAN) force according to the robot control mode. When a participant could not move the arm toward the target for more than 2 seconds, WAM provided AAN force to reach the desired targets. All patients participated in the training for 40 minutes per day, 3 times a week, for 4 weeks. Main outcome measures were the Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA), Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) and Box and Block Test (BBT) to assess upper extremity functional movement. Results: After 4 weeks, significant improvement was observed in upper extremity functional movement (FMA: 42.15 to 46.23, BBT: 12.23 to 14.00, p<0.05). In the subscore analysis of the FMA upper extremity motor function domains, significant improvement was observed in upper extremity and coordination/speed units (p<0.05). However, there were no significant differences in the ARAT. Conclusions: This study showed the positive effects of robot arm reach training on upper extremity functional movement in chronic stroke survivors. In particular, we confirmed that robot arm reach training could have a positive influence by leading to improvement of motor recovery of the proximal upper extremity.

• Journal of Korean Gerontological Nursing
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• v.20 no.sup1
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• pp.127-136
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• 2018

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility of using intelligent robot based nursing practice as discussed in previous research and also, to propose directions for robot care for elders. Methods: For this study 28 previous researches using robots in health care field were reviewed and related research trends introduced. Results: Robot applications in the healthcare field were mainly for rehabilitation, surgery, interaction, and nursing assistance through robotics. Especially types of robot include pet type robots, humanoid robots, surgical robots, rehabilitation robots, robot suit and entertainment robots with monitors. The research participants were patients with dementia and institutionalized elderly people. It was found that a human-robot interaction was effective from physical, mental, emotional and social aspects. Conclusion: Robots can be used for various purposes such as nursing assistance, patient health promotion and education. It is necessary to reduce the human burden of care work using robots and to introduce robot care programs which can meet the needs of elders. Therefore, korean nurses should make efforts to change their practice to new geriatric nursing through repeated research based on the scientific data.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.1180-1185
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• 2004

The purpose of this study is to develop a Multi-joint rehabilitation system (CMRS : C&R Lab. Multi-joint Rehabilitation System). This study presents the mechanism of rehabilitation system that enables rehabilitation of multi-joint with kinematical analysis for joints of human body. Also, the relative positioning between human subjects and the head part to rehabilitate for the mechanism is based on robotics and anatomy. This study was verified with simulations. Finally, Automation of positioning was realized. Rehabilitation exercises in passive mode were enabled with the results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.9
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• pp.825-837
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• 2017

This paper describes a novel type of a walking rehabilitation robot that applies robot technologies to crutches used by patients with walking difficulties in the lower body. The primary features of the developed robot are divided into three parts. First, the developed robot is worn on the patient's chest, as opposed to the conventional elbow crutch that is attached to the forearm; hence, it can effectively disperse the patient's weight throughout the width of the chest, and eliminate the concentrated load at the elbow. Furthermore, it allows free arm motion during walking. Second, the developed robot can recognize the walking intention of the patient from the magnitude and direction of the ground reactive forces. This is done using three-axis force sensors attached to the feet of the robot. Third, the robot can perform a stair walking function, which can change vertical movement trajectories in order to step up and down a single stair according to the floor height. Consequently, we experimentally showed that the developed robot can effectively perform walking rehabilitation assistance by perceiving the walking intention of the patient. Moreover we quantitatively verified muscle power assistance by measuring the electromyography (EMG) signals of the muscles of the lower limb.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.833-839
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• 2010

In this paper, a novel 1 DOF hand rehabilitation robot is proposed in consideration of ADL training for stroke patients. To perform several ADL trainings, the proposed robot can move the thumb part and the part of 4 fingers simultaneously and realize the full ROM (Range of Motion) in grasp. Based on these characteristics, the proposed robot realizes several types of grasp such as cylindrical grasp, lateral grasp, and pinch grasp by using a passive revolute joint that can change the thumb movement direction. The movement of the thumb is driven by a cable mechanism and the part of 4 fingers is moved by a four-bar linkage mechanism.