• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.62 no.6
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• pp.803-810
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• 2013

The purpose of this research is to analyze the effect of shape of the inductive textile electrode on the non-contact heart activity sensing, based on the magnetic-induced conductivity principle. Four types of the inductive textile electrodes were determined according to the combinations of the two shape features. A fiber-metal hybrid-typed conductive thread was developed and applied to materialization of the textile electrodes by embroidery method. The heart activity was extracted through the textile electrode sewn on a T-shirt. The experiments were implemented to constantly measure the heart activity for 20 seconds, in each case of 5 healthy male subjects. The heart activity signals acquired in each type of the inductive textile electrode were analyzed, 1)by drawing a comparison of morphology with those of ECG signal (LeadII), and 2)by calculation of the normalized mean and standard deviation of magnitude of the heart activity signals. The analysis resulted that the relatively better quality of signals were acquired in the 'square' types in the matter of whole shape, while the better results were obtained in 'donut' types in the matter of center hole. Accordingly, the relatively best quality of signals was obtained in the case of 'Square-Donut' type of the inductive textile electrode.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.189-200
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• 2007

As a functional material, shape memory alloy (SMA) has attracted much attention and research effort to explore its unique properties and its applications in the past few decades. Some of its properties, in particular the electrical resistance (ER) based self-sensing property of SMA, have not been fully studied. Electrical resistance of an SMA wire varies during its phase transformation. This variation is an inherent property of the SMA wire, although it is highly nonlinear with hysteresis. The relationship between the displacement and the electrical resistance of an SMA wire is deterministic and repeatable to some degree, therefore enabling the self-sensing ability of the SMA. The potential of this self-sensing ability has not received sufficient exploration so far, and even the previous studies in literature lack generality. This paper concerns the utilization of the self-sensing property of a spring-biased Nickel-Titanium (Nitinol) SMA actuator for two applications: ER feedback position control of an SMA actuator without a position sensor, and estimation of the opening of a SMA actuated valve. The use of the self-sensing property eliminates the need for a position sensor, therefore reducing the cost and size of an SMA actuator assembly. Two experimental apparatuses are fabricated to facilitate the two proposed applications, respectively. Based on open-loop testing results, the curve fitting technique is used to represent the nonlinear relationships between the displacement and the electrical resistance of the two SMA wire actuators. Using the mathematical models of the two SMA actuators, respectively, a proportional plus derivative controller is designed for control of the SMA wire actuator using only electrical resistance feedback. Consequently, the opening of the SMA actuated valve can be estimated without using an extra sensor.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.88-99
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• 1998

In assembly, misalignment must be detected and compensated for during the mating period, regardless of the complexity of the cross-sectional shape. To this end, we propose a novel omnidirectional image sensing system for assembling parts with complicated shapes(OISSA) and its feasibility for detecting the misalignment between mating parts is shown by a series of simulations. This system encompasses a camera with an optical unit attached to the front of the camera. The optical unit consists of a pair of plane mirrors and a pair of conic mirrors. Utilizing the proposed sensing system, a 2$\pi$ coaxial image of the misalignment along the mating boundary interface between mating parts can be immediately obtained without experiencing self-occlusion.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.49-58
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• 1997

Finding of internal quality is crucial for getting under control quality of watermelon after harvest. A maturity sensing device of watermelon using repulsion characteristics was developed and evaluated. In this study, five different sensing probes were used to detect the physical changes after impact on watermelons. Total 15 watermelons were tested and evaluated into two classes: ripe and unripe. It was difficult to detect the overripe watermelons using the proposed sensor. Therefore, the results showed that the developed sensor could be used to separate unripe watermelons after harvest. The results from this study are summarized as follows. 1. It was successful to distinguish between the ripe and unripe watermelon by sensing the elastic characteristics on impact. 2. The hemisphere was best for the shape of sensing part because the hemisphere concentrate stress in impact part. 3. Among the five type developed sensor, the 1, 2, 3. 5-type sensor showed good character in distinguishing between ripe and unripe watermelon.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.69-75
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• 2002

This study investigated the effect of the system parameters on penetration depth measurement using infrared temperature sensing system. The distance from focusing lens to detector was varied to diminish the error in measuring weld bead width. The effect of bead surface shape on measured surface temperature profile was evaluated using specimen heated by electric resistance. The measuring distance from laser beam was changed to optimize the measuring point. The results indicated that the monitoring device of surface temperature using infrared detector array was applicable to real time penetration depth control.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.163-166
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• 2000

Fiber Bra99 grating (FBG) sensor, one of the fiber optic sensor (FOS) offers lots of advantages for structural health monitoring due to its multiplexing capability. Also, it is proper to measure the structural vibration with no mass concentration effect. In this paper, we constructed two sensor arrays composed of 9 FBG sensors for the vibration and mode sensing of a composites beam. For an accurate measurement of wavelength shift, a signal processing board with an electric circuit based on time-interval counting was developed. This sensor system showed a good resolution of dynamic strain (<10${\mu}{\varepsilon}$). Using this sensor system, dynamic strains at 9 points of composite beam was measured and strain measured mode shape of the beam was calculated from the acquired strains and compared with numerical results by ABAQUS.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.23-31
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• 1995

The sending characteristics of the non-contact type displacement transducers can affect the performances of the magnetic bearing systems when they support the rotating shaft. The probe type displacement sensor detects not only the displacement of the rotor at the sensing position but also the surface irregularitis of the rotor such as surface roughnessand roundness errors. If there exist such measuring errors, the magnetic bearing can not apply proper force against the rotor displacements for the detected signal is the input to the magnetic bearing controllers. The cylindrical shape capacitive transducer can detect the rotor displacement by the integral sum of the charges which are formed between the sensor plates and rotor so that it can reduce the detecting errors induced by the surface irregularities of the rotor. By theore- tical analysis, we compared the sensing characteristics of the cylindrical shape capacitive transducers for the rotors that have some sinusoidal irregularities with that of the ideal probe type displacement transducers.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.11 no.7
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• pp.615-620
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• 2005

For successful deformable part assembly, information about its deformation as well as possible misalignment between the hole and its respective mating part are essential. Such information can be mainly acquired from visual sensors. In this paper, part deformation and misalignment in deformable cylindrical peg-in-hole tasks are measured by using a visual sensing system. First, a series of experiments to measure the position of an arbitrary point are performed. Next, an algorithm to measure misalignment and part shape as part deformation are presented, and a series of experiments on them are performed. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithms and the system are effective in measuring part deformation and misalignment.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.473-481
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• 2008

This paper presents an approach to Back-propagation and Radial Basis Function neural network method with various training set for automatic vehicle detection from aerial images. The initial extraction of candidate object is based on Mean-shift algorithm with symmetric property of a vehicle structure. By fusing the density and the symmetry, the method can remove the ambiguous objects and reduce the cost of processing in the next stage. To extract features from the detected object, we describe the object as a log-polar shape histogram using edge strengths of object and represent the orientation and distance from its center. The spatial histogram is used for calculating the momentum of object and compensating the direction of object. BPNN and RBFNN are applied to verify the object as a vehicle using a variety of non-car training sets. The proposed algorithm shows the results which are according to the training data. By comparing the training sets, advantages and disadvantages of them have been discussed.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.41-47
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• 2006

Detection and identification of targets from remotely sensed imagery are of great interest for civilian and military application. This paper presents an algorithm for target detection in high spatial resolution imagery based on the spectral and the dimensional characteristics of the reference target. In this algorithm, the spectral and the dimensional information of the reference target is extracted automatically from the sample image of the reference target. Then in the entire image, the candidate target pixels are extracted based on the spectral characteristics of the reference target. Finally, groups of candidate pixels which form isolated spatial objects of similar size to that of the reference target are extracted as detected targets. The experimental test results showed that even though the algorithm detected spatial objects which has different shape as targets if the spectral and the dimensional characteristics are similar to that of the reference target, it could detect 97.5% of the targets in the image. Using hyperspectral image and utilizing the shape information are expected to increase the performance of the proposed algorithm.