• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.282-284
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• 2011

Based on graphene oxide and multi-walled carbon nanotube layers, a wireless bi-layer actuator that can be remotely controlled with an electromagnetic induction system has been developed. The graphene-based bi-layer actuator exhibits a large one-way bending deformation under eddy current stimuli due to asymmetrical responses originating from the temperature difference of the two different carbon layers. In order to validate one-way bending actuation, the coefficients of thermal expansion of carbon nanotube and graphene oxide are mathematically formulated in this study based on the atomic bonding energy related to the bonding length. The newly designed graphene-based bi-layer actuator is highly sensitive to electromagnetic wave irradiation thus it can trigger a new actuation mode for the realization of remotely controllable actuators and is expected to have potential applications in various wireless systems.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.954-958
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• 2012

This paper reports a flexible patch rectenna for wireless actuation of cellulose electro-active paper actuator (EAPap). The patch rectenna consists of rectifying circuit layer and ground layer, which converts microwave to dc power so as to wirelessly supply the power to the actuator. Patch rectennas are designed with different slot length at the ground layer. The fabricated devices are characterized depending on different substrates and polarization angles. The EAPap integrated with the patch rectenna is actuated by the microwave power. Detailed fabrication, characterization and demonstration of the integrated rectenna-EAPap actuator are explained.

• Journal of Internet of Things and Convergence
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.125-129
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• 2023

Age of Information (AoI) has been introduced in wireless networked control systems (WNCSs) to guarantee timely status updates. In addition, as the edge computing (EC) architecture has been deployed in NCS, EC close to sensors can be exploited to collect status updates from sensors and provide control decisions to actuators. However, when lots of sensors simultaneously deliver status updates, EC can be overloaded, which cannot satisfy the AoI requirement. To mitigate this problem, this paper uses actuators with computing capability that can directly receive the status updates from sensors and determine the control decision without the help of EC. To analyze the AoI of the actuation update via EC or directly using actuators, this paper developed an analytic model based on timing diagrams. Extensive simulation results are included to verify the analytic model and to show the AoI with various settings.

• IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.113-117
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• 2021

The data gathering delay and the network lifetime are important indicators to measure the service quality of wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs). This study proposes a dynamically cluster head (CH) selection strategy and automatic scheduling scheme of collectors for prolonging the network lifetime and shorting data gathering delay in WSAN. First the monitoring region is equally divided into several subregions and each subregion dynamically selects a sensor node as CH. These can balance the energy consumption of sensor node thereby prolonging the network lifetime. Then a task allocation method based on genetic algorithm is proposed to uniformly assign tasks to actuators. Finally the trajectory of each actuator is optimized by ant colony optimization algorithm. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method and the results show that the method performs better to extend network lifetime while also reducing data delay.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.299-312
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• 2012

The authors' research efforts recently led to the development of a customized wireless control unit which receives the real-time feedbacks from the sensors, and elaborates the consequent control signal to drive the actuator(s). The controller is wireless in performing the data transmission task, i.e., it receives the signals from the sensors without the need of installing any analogue cable connection between them, but it is powered by wire. The actuator also needs to be powered by wire. In this framework, the design of a power management unit is of interest only for the wireless sensor stations, and it should be adaptable to different kind of sensor requirements in terms of voltage and power consumption. In the present paper, the power management efficiency is optimized by taking into consideration three different kinds of accelerometers, a load cell, and a non-contact laser displacement sensor. The required voltages are assumed to be provided by a power harvesting solution where the energy is stored into a capacitor.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.26 no.7
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• pp.881-887
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• 2016

In this study, the vibration-based tactile actuator for smart wear applications is presented by using piezoelectric ceramic transducers. The compact wireless actuation system is constructed with a high voltage piezoelectric amplifier, a microcontroller, wireless communication module, and rechargeable lithium-polymer battery. For the wireless communication between a hardware and an operator, the bluetooth-based wireless communication system is prepared and the user interface is provided via smart phone applications. From a series of experimental user studies, it is demonstrated that the proposed vibro-tactile actuator based on piezoelectric ceramic transducers can be effectively applied to smart wear applications.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.17-23
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• 2016

Wireless sensor-actuator networks (WSANs) enhance the existing wireless sensor networks (WSNs) by equipping sensor nodes with an actuator. The actuators work with the sensor nodes and perform application-specific operations. The WSAN systems have several applications such as disaster relief, intelligent building, military surveillance, health monitoring, and infrastructure security. These applications require capability of reliable data transfer to act responsively and accurately. Biologically inspired modeling techniques have received considerable attention for achieving robustness, scalability, and adaptability, while retaining individual simplicity. In this paper, an epidemic-inspired algorithm for data dissemination with delay constraints while minimizing energy consumption in WSAN is proposed. The steady states and system stability are analyzed using control theory. Also, simulation results indicate that the proposed scheme provides desirable dissemination delay and energy saving.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.227-234
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• 2011

The Interest in robotics has been steadily increasing in recent times both in Korea as well as abroad. Research on robots for new and diverse fields is ongoing. This study discusses the current research and development on robot actuator, which are used to control the joints of robots, and focuses on developing more efficient technology for joint control, as compared with the current technologies. It also aims to find means to apply the abovementioned technology to diverse industrial fields. We found that easy and effective control of actuators could be achieved by using ZigBee sensor networks, which were widely being used on wireless communications. Throughout the experiments it is proved that the developed wireless actuator could be used for easy control of various robot joints. This technology can be effectively applied to develop two-legged robots that will be able to walk like human, or even quadruped and hexapod robots. It can also be applied to motors used in industry. In this study, we develop an extremely minimized ZigBee sensor network module that can be used to control various servo motors with low power consumption even if it is long distances. We realized effective wireless control by optimizing the ZigBee antenna, and were able to quickly check the status of relevant Tree node through mutual communication between the servo motors composing the ZigBee sensor network and the main server control modules. The developed Servo Motor with ZigBee sensor network modules can be applied in both robotics as well as for home or factory automation.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.986-992
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• 2021

To stabilize closed-loop wireless control systems, the state-of-the-art approach receives the individual sensor measurements at the controller and then sends the computed control signal to the actuators. We propose an over-the-air controller scheme where all sensors attached to the plant transmit scaled sensing signals simultaneously to the actuator, and the actuator then computes the feedback control signal by scaling the received signal. The over-the-air controller essentially adopts the over-the-air computation concept to compute the control signal for closed-loop wireless control systems. In contrast to the state-of-the-art sensor-to-controller and controller-to-actuator communication approach, the over-the-air controller exploits the superposition properties of multiple-access wireless channels to complete the communication and computation of a large number of sensing signals in a single communication resource unit. Therefore, the proposed scheme can obtain significant benefits in terms of low actuation delay and low resource utilization with a simple network architecture that does not require a dedicated controller.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.30 no.1 s.244
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• pp.84-89
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• 2006

A wireless capsule endoscope has been developed to replace the conventional endoscope. However, the commercialized capsule endoscope moves passively by peristaltic waves, which has some limitations for doctors to diagnose more thoroughly and actively. In order to solve this problem, a locomotive mechanism is proposed for wireless capsule endoscopes. Based on the tests of various actuators, a piezo actuator is selected as a micro actuator for capsule endoscope. In general, piezo actuators are known to have limited displacement with high voltage supply. In order to overcome the limitation of common piezo actuator, the impact based piezo actuator, is developed to realize long stroke up 11mm. By using the impact based piezo actuator, a prototype of an earthworm-like locomotive mechanism was developed. In addition, the proposed locomotive mechanism has engraved clamps mimicked the claw of an insect. The earthworm-like locomotive mechanism has 15 mm in diameter and 30mm under retraction stage and 41 mm under elongation stage in total length. Hollow space is allocated to comprise essential endoscope components such as a camera, a communication module, bio sensors, and a battery. For the feasibility test of proposed locomotive mechanism, a series of experiments were carried out including in-vitro tests. Based on results of the experiments, we conclude that the proposed locomotive mechanism is effective to be used for micro capsule endoscopes.