• Composites Research
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.378-393
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• 2022

As an emerging power generation technology, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have received increasing attention due to their boundless promise in energy harvesting and self-powered sensing applications. The recent rise of soft robotics has sparked widespread enthusiasm for developing flexible and soft sensors and actuators. TENGs have been regarded as promising power sources for driving actuators and self-powered sensors, providing a unique approach for the development of soft robots with soft sensors and actuators. In this review, TENG-based soft robots with different morphologies and different functions are introduced. Among them, the design of biomimetic soft robots that imitate the structure, surface morphology, material properties, and sensing/generating mechanisms of nature has greatly benefited in improving the performance of TENGs. In addition, various bionic soft robots have been well improved compared to previous driving methods due to the simple structure, self-powering characteristics, and tunable output of TENGs. Furthermore, we provide a comprehensive review of various studies within specific areas of TENG-enabled soft robotics applications. We first explore various recently developed TENG-based soft robots and a comparative analysis of various device structures, surface morphologies, and nature-inspired materials, and the resulting improvements in TENG performance. Various ubiquitous sensing principles and generation mechanisms used in nature and their analogous artificial TENG designs are demonstrated. Finally, biomimetic applications of TENG enabled in tactile displays as well as in wearable devices, artificial electronic skin and other devices are discussed. System designs, challenges and prospects of TENGs-based sensing and actuation devices in the practical application of soft robotics are analyzed.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.266-273
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• 2017

In this research a medical palpation guidance system for minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is proposed. Palpation is a useful tool for identifying a size and location of a lump during a surgery. However, conventional manual palpation is only available in open surgery, so there has been several researches about palpation assistant or guidance system for MIS. The previously developed systems are based on a pressure based or stiffness based approach. These previous approaches have some limitations in increasing complexity of the systems and lack of geometric information about the lump which is more important information for the lump removal than the stiffness information. We propose a palpation guidance system using a novel approach using contact pressure distribution. Since our approach gives the geometry information of the lump as well as the existence information, the operator can easily notice the currently identified lump region and the optimal position for the next palpation. The experiment results show that our approach can offer the geometry information of the lump correctly.

• IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.35-41
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• 2017

We propose a face recognition and notification system that can transform visual face information into tactile signals in order to help visually impaired people. The proposed system consists of a glasses type camera, a mobile computer and an electronic cane. The glasses type camera captures the frontal view of the user, and sends this image to mobile computer. The mobile computer starts to search for human's face in the image when obstacles are detected by ultrasonic sensors. In a case that human's face is detected, the mobile computer identifies detected face. At this time, Adaboost and compressive sensing are used as a detector and a classifier, respectively. After the identification procedures of the detected face, the identified face information is sent to controller attached to a cane using a Bluetooth communication. The controller generates motor control signals using Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) according to the recognized face labels. The vibration motor generates vibration patterns to inform the visually impaired person of the face recognition result. The experimental results of face recognition and notification system show that proposed system is helpful for visually impaired people by providing person identification results in front of him/her.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.509-517
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• 2021

Smart materials capable of changing their characteristics in response to stimuli such as light, heat, pH, and electric and magnetic fields are promising for application to flexible electronics, soft robotics, and biomedicine. Compared with conventional rigid materials, these materials are typically composed of soft materials that improve the biocompatibility and allow for large and dynamic deformations in response to external environmental stimuli. Among them, smart magnetic materials are attracting immense attention owing to their fast response, remote actuation, and wide penetration range under various conditions. In this review, we report the material design and fabrication of smart magnetic materials. Furthermore, we focus on recent advances in their typical applications, namely, soft magnetic actuators, sensors for self-assembly, object manipulation, shape transformation, multimodal robot actuation, and tactile sensing.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.142-149
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• 2009

This paper proposes and demonstrates novel flexible contact force sensing devices for 3-dimensional force measurement. To realize the sensor, polyimide and polydimethylsiloxane are used as a substrate, which makes it flexible. Thin-film metal strain gauges, which are incorporated into the polymer, are used for measuring the three-dimensional contact forces. The force sensor characteristics are evaluated against normal and shear load. The fabricated force sensor can measure normal loads up to 4N. The sensor output signals are saturated against load over 4N. Shear loads can be detected by different voltage drops in strain gauges. The device has no fragile structures; therefore, it can be used as a ground reaction force sensor for balance control in humanoid robots. Four force sensors are assembled and placed in the four corners of the robot's sole. By increasing bump dimensions, the force sensor can measure load up to 20N. When loads are exerted on the sole, the ground reaction force can be measured by these four sensors. The measured forces can be used in the balance control of biped locomotion system.

• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.226-230
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• 2007

In the conventional desktop PC environment, keyboard and mouse are used to process the user input and monitor displays the visual information as an output device. In order to manipulate the digital information, we move the virtual cursor to select the desired graphical icon on the monitor The cursor represents the relative motion of the physical mouse on the desk. This desktop metaphor does not provide intuitive interface through human sensation. In this paper, we introduce a novel tangible interface which allows the user to interact with computers using a physical tool called "Smartpuck". SmartPuck system bridges the gap between analog perception and response in human being and digital information on the computer. The system consists of table display based on a PDP, SmartPuck equipped with rotational part and button for the user's intuitive and tactile input, and a sensing system to track the position of SmartPuck. Finally, we will show examples working with the system.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.647-654
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• 2022

Wearable devices come in a variety of shapes and sizes in numerous fields in numerous fields and are available in various forms. They can be integrated into clothing, gloves, hats, glasses, and bags and used in healthcare, the medical field, and machine interfaces. These devices keep track individuals' biological and behavioral data to help with health communication and are often used for injury prevention. Those with hearing loss or impaired vision find it more difficult to recognize an approaching person or object; these sensing devices are particularly useful for such individuals, as they assist them with injury prevention by alerting them to the presence of people or objects in their immediate vicinity. Despite these obvious preventive benefits to developing Internet of Things based devices for the disabled, the development of these devices has been sluggish thus far. In particular, when compared with people without disabilities, people with hearing impairment have a much higher probability of averting danger when they are able to notice it in advance. However, research and development remain severely underfunded. In this study, we incorporated a wearable detection system, which uses an infrared proximity sensor, into a backpack. This system helps its users recognize when someone is approaching from behind through visual and tactile notification, even if they have difficulty hearing or seeing the objects in their surroundings. Furthermore, this backpack could help prevent accidents for all users, particularly those with visual or hearing impairments.