• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.39B no.7
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• pp.479-490
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• 2014

A lower extremity exoskeleton is a robot device that attaches to the lower limbs of the human body to augment or assist with the walking ability of the wearer. In order to improve the wearer's walking ability, the robot senses the wearer's walking locomotion and classifies it into a gait-phase state, after which it drives the appropriate robot motions for each state using its actuators. This paper presents a method by which the robot senses the wearer's locomotion along with a novel classification algorithm which classifies the sensed data as a gait-phase state. The robot determines its control mode using this gait-phase information. If erroneous information is delivered, the robot will fail to improve the walking ability or will bring some discomfort to the wearer. Therefore, it is necessary for the algorithm constantly to classify the correct gait-phase information. However, our device for sensing a human's locomotion has very sensitive characteristics sufficient for it to detect small movements. With only simple logic like a threshold-based classification, it is difficult to deliver the correct information continually. In order to overcome this and provide correct information in a timely manner, a probabilistic gait-phase classification algorithm is proposed. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm offers excellent accuracy.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.409-420
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• 2016

Korea is expected to enter 'Super Aged Society' in 2026. However, as walking is the very basic human right of mobility, securing safe and convenient moving of elderly people comprising the majority of transportation vulnerable is thought to be the most basic welfare, which can be easily neglected. From this perspectives, this study provides the walking characteristics of elderly people to be used in design of pedestrian facilities. The analysis of the measurements using Motion Analysis Systems shows that all walking factors of elderly people is 75% level of the younger group. Elderly group shows slower movement, reduced shoulder movement and increased ankle movement compared to the others. Also, foots are risen less and ground repulsive force is increased. Cluster analysis shows that the group of the elderly shows high variability inside the group, and 2 or 3 clusters can be formed with factors of Walking, Balance and Muscles. These walking characteristics can be used in designing pedestrian road, slope and step height of roadway facilities.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.121-131
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• 2024

Purpose : This study aimed to investigate the leisure satisfaction of participants in the Geod-Jyu walking program and to examine the relationship between health promotion behaviors and quality of life. In addition, we investigated the impact of leisure satisfaction with walking among program participants on health promotion behaviors and quality of life. By clarifying these relationships, we aimed to identify factors of leisure satisfaction with walking that could enhance participants' health promotion behaviors and quality of life. Methods : A survey was conducted among 301 participants enrolled in the Geod-Jyu walking program in Chungcheongnam-do, with 288 responses analyzed. Data analysis included Pearson's correlation, confirmatory factor analysis, and multiple regression analysis using SPSS 27.0. Result : Leisure satisfaction exhibited a positive correlation with health promotion behavior (r=.544, p<.01) and quality of life (r=.478, p<.01). Furthermore, health promotion behavior showed a positive correlation with quality of life (r=.636, p<.01). Leisure satisfaction positively influenced quality of life, with physiological satisfaction (β=.16, t=2.32) and relaxation satisfaction (β=.15, t=2.04) emerging as notable contributors. In addition, leisure satisfaction had a significant positive impact on health promotion behaviors, with psychological satisfaction (β=.24, t=3.09) and educational satisfaction (β=.20, t=3.09) playing key roles. Health promotion behavior had a positive impact on quality of life, with all sub variables exhibiting significant positive effects in the following order: self-actualization (β=.24, t=4.16), stress management (β=.22, t=3.97), exercise (β=.22, t=4.05), and health responsibility (β=.12, t=2.14). Conclusion : The findings indicate that factors related to physical and rest satisfaction, as well as health-promoting behaviors facilitated by walking, significantly affected the quality of life among Geod-Jyu participants. Thus, promoting leisure satisfaction and engaging in health-promoting activities through walking can enhance overall well-being. Encouraging participation in the Geod-Jyu walking program is critical for physical and psychological benefits, and for promoting healthier behaviors. Further development of Geod-Jyu is expected to enhance walking satisfaction, promote self-care skills for health management, and positively influence quality of life.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.47-57
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• 2016

In this paper, we measured human body signals in order to verify a active harness system that we developed for gait and balance training. The experimental procedure was validated by tests with 20 healthy male subjects. They conducted motions of Activities of Daily Living(ADL)(Normal Walking, Stand-to-Sit, Sit-to-Stand, Stair Walking Up, and Stair Walking Down) according to body weight support rates (0%, 30%, 50% of subjects' body weight). The effectiveness of the active harness system is verified by using the results of foot pressure distribution. In normal walking, the decrease of fore-foot pressure, lateral soleus muscle and biceps femoris muscle were remarkable. The result of stand-to-sit results motion indicated that the rear-foot pressure and tibialis anterior muscle activities exceptionally decreased according to body weight support. The stair walking down show the marked drop of fore-foot pressure and rectus femoris muscle activities. The sit-to-stand and stair walking up activities were inadequate about the effect of body weight support because the velocity of body weight support system was slower than male's activity.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.86-96
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• 2011

The human-following is one of the significant procedure in human-friendly navigation of mobile robots. There are many approaches of human-following technology. Many approaches have adopted various multiple sensors such as vision system and Laser Range Finder (LRF). In this paper, we propose detection and tracking approaches for human legs by the use of a single LRF. We extract four simple attributes of human legs. To define the boundary of extracted attributes mathematically, we used a Support Vector Data Description (SVDD) scheme. We establish an efficient leg-tracking scheme by exploiting a human walking model to achieve robust tracking under occlusions. The proposed approaches were successfully verified through various experiments.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.9 no.4 s.44
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• pp.19-28
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• 2005

Long span structures with low natural frequencies such as shopping malls, large offices, and assembly rooms may experience signification dynamic responses due to human activities. In many cases, the group activities are common thing in comparison with the single activity. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the responses of building structure subjected to group human loads using mode shapes. For this purpose, equations to estimate the magnitudes ol responses ol structure subjected to group walking loads are derived. And the correlation of loads is verified for identifying the relation of each human load composing of group human loads using two load cells. The method is proposed for evaluating the responses of structure subjected to group loads using mode shapes and correlation function related to each human loads. The effectiveness ol the proposed method is verified analytically using a simple beam and floor and experimentally on a footbridge measuring the structural response induced by group pedestrians for the case of synchronization or not. Results indicate that the amplitudes of group walking loads can be easily estimated if the mode shapes are available, and that the corresponding structural responses can be estimated easily by the simple response measurement using the proposed method.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.1245-1246
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• 2022

Walkability is an indicator of how much pedestrians are willing to walk and how well a walking environment is created. As walking can promote pedestrians' mental and physical health, there has been increasing focus on improving walkability in different ways. Thus, plenty of research has been undertaken to measure walkability. When measuring walkability, there are many objective and subjective variables. Subjective variables include a feeling of safety, pleasure, or comfort, which can significantly affect perceived walkability. However, these subjective factors are difficult to measure by making the walkability index more reliant on objective and physical factors. Because many subjective variables are associated with human emotional states, understanding pedestrians' emotional states provides an opportunity to measure the subjective walkability variables more quantitatively. Pedestrians' emotions can be examined through surveys, but there are social and economic difficulties involved when conducting surveys. Recently, an increasing number of studies have employed physiological data to measure pedestrians' stress responses when navigating unpleasant environmental barriers on their walking paths. However, studies investigating the emotional states of pedestrians in the walking environment, including assessing their positive emotions felt, such as pleasure, have rarely been conducted. Using wearable devices, this study examined the various emotional states of pedestrians affected by the walking environment. Specifically, this study aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of monitoring biometric data, such as electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate variability (HRV), using wearable devices as an indicator of pedestrians' emotional states-both pleasant-unpleasant and aroused-relaxed states. To this end, various walking environments with different characteristics were set up to collect and analyze the pedestrians' biometric data. Subsequently, the subjects wearing the wearable devices were allowed to walk on the experimental paths as usual. After the experiment, the valence (i.e., pleasant or unpleasant) and arousal (i.e., activated or relaxed) scale of the pedestrians was identified through a bipolar dimension survey. The survey results were compared with many potentially relevant EDA and HRV signal features. The research results revealed the potential for physiological responses to indicate the pedestrians' emotional states, but further investigation is warranted. The research results were expected to provide a method to measure the subjective factors of walkability by measuring emotions and monitoring pedestrians' positive or negative feelings when walking to improve the walking environment. However, due to the lack of samples and other internal and external factors influencing emotions (which need to be studied further), it cannot be comprehensively concluded that the pedestrians' emotional states were affected by the walking environment.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.1019-1031
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• 2017

In this study, we propose a new method for simulating water responding to human motion. Motion data obtained from motion-capture devices are represented as a jointed skeleton, which interacts with the velocity field in the water simulation. To integrate the motion data into the water simulation space, it is necessary to establish a mapping relationship between two fields with different properties. However, there can be severe numerical instability if the mapping breaks down, with the realism of the human-water interaction being adversely affected. To address this problem, our method extends the joint velocity mapped to each grid point to neighboring nodes. We refine these extended velocities to enable increased robustness in the water solver. Our experimental results demonstrate that water animation can be made to respond to human motions such as walking and jumping.

• International Journal of Fuzzy Logic and Intelligent Systems
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.246-252
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• 2005

Intelligent Space is a space where many sensors and intelligent devices are distributed. Mobile robots exist in this space as physical agents, which provide human with services. To realize this, human and mobile robots have to approach each other as much as possible. Moreover, it is necessary for them to perform interactions naturally. It is desirable for a mobile robot to carry out human affinitive movement. In this research, a mobile robot is controlled by the Intelligent Space through its resources. The mobile robot is controlled to follow walking human as stably and precisely as possible. In order to follow a human, control law is derived from the assumption that a human and a mobile robot are connected with a virtual spring model. Input velocity to a mobile robot is generated on the basis of the elastic force from the virtual spring in this model. And its performance is verified by the computer simulation and the experiment.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.1435-1439
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• 2004

Most recently, CP(Cellular Phone) has been one of the most important technologies in the IT(Information Tech-nology) field, and it is situated in a position of great importance industrially and economically. To produce the best CP in the world, a new technological concept and its advanced implementation technique is required, due to the extreme level of competition in the world market. The RT(Robot Technology) has been developed as the next generation of a future technology. Current robots require advanced technology, such as soft computing, human-friendly interface, interaction technique, speech recognition, object recognition etc. unlike the industrial robots of the past. Therefore, this paper explains conceptual research for development of the RCP(Robotic Cellular Phone), a new technological concept, in which a synergy effect is generated by the merging of IT & RT. RCP infra consists of $RCP^{Mobility}$ $RCP^{Interaction}$, $RCP^{Integration}$ technologies. For $RCP^{Mobility}$, human-friendly motion automation and personal service with walking and arming ability are developed. $RCP^{Interaction}$ ability is achieved by modeling an emotion-generating engine and $RCP^{Integration}$ that recognizes environmental and self conditions is developed. By joining intelligent algorithms and CP communication network with the three base modules, a RCP system is constructed. Especially, the RCP mobility system is focused in this paper. $RCP^{Mobility}$ is to apply a mobility technology, which is popular robot technology, to CP and combine human-friendly motion and navigation function to CP. It develops a new technological application system of auto-charging and real-world entertainment function etc. This technology can make a CP companion pet robot. It is an automation of human-friendly motions such as opening and closing of CPs, rotation of antenna, manipulation and wheel-walking. It's target is the implementation of wheel and manipulator functions that can give service to humans with human-friendly motion. So, this paper presents the definition, the basic theory and experiment results of the RCP mobility system. We confirm a good performance of the RCP mobility system through the experiment results.