• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
• /
• v.26 no.6_3
• /
• pp.1315-1323
• /
• 2023

Rehabilitation assistive devices not only assist the rehabilitation therapy and daily life of the disabled and the elderly, but also assist the labor of their caregivers, so various functions are required to improve their quality of life. In this study, a design method considering its practicality is introduced for an active rehabilitation assistive device that can perform both standing and walking assistance by driving various actuators. For this purpose, the force required to assist standing was calculated using statics with the body segmentation method. Also, the overturning stability of the device was verified for various physical conditions and postures. The actuator in the active rehabilitation assistive device was operated by a patient using a graphical user interface in an embedded computer and a touch panel for easy usage. The detailed design was performed for implementation through the help of 3D-CAD and the finite element analysis, and a prototype was produced. Finally, it was proven that the design goal was satisfied by experimental validation.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.53-69
• /
• 2011

Vision and voice-based technologies are commonly utilized for human-robot interaction. But it is widely recognized that the performance of vision and voice-based interaction systems is deteriorated by a large margin in the real-world situations due to environmental and user variances. Human users need to be very cooperative to get reasonable performance, which significantly limits the usability of the vision and voice-based human-robot interaction technologies. As a result, touch screens are still the major medium of human-robot interaction for the real-world applications. To empower the usability of robots for various services, alternative interaction technologies should be developed to complement the problems of vision and voice-based technologies. In this paper, we propose the use of accelerometer-based gesture interface as one of the alternative technologies, because accelerometers are effective in detecting the movements of human body, while their performance is not limited by environmental contexts such as lighting conditions or camera's field-of-view. Moreover, accelerometers are widely available nowadays in many mobile devices. We tackle the problem of classifying acceleration signal patterns of 26 English alphabets, which is one of the essential repertoires for the realization of education services based on robots. Recognizing 26 English handwriting patterns based on accelerometers is a very difficult task to take over because of its large scale of pattern classes and the complexity of each pattern. The most difficult problem that has been undertaken which is similar to our problem was recognizing acceleration signal patterns of 10 handwritten digits. Most previous studies dealt with pattern sets of 8~10 simple and easily distinguishable gestures that are useful for controlling home appliances, computer applications, robots etc. Good features are essential for the success of pattern recognition. To promote the discriminative power upon complex English alphabet patterns, we extracted 'motion trajectories' out of input acceleration signal and used them as the main feature. Investigative experiments showed that classifiers based on trajectory performed 3%~5% better than those with raw features e.g. acceleration signal itself or statistical figures. To minimize the distortion of trajectories, we applied a simple but effective set of smoothing filters and band-pass filters. It is well known that acceleration patterns for the same gesture is very different among different performers. To tackle the problem, online incremental learning is applied for our system to make it adaptive to the users' distinctive motion properties. Our system is based on instance-based learning (IBL) where each training sample is memorized as a reference pattern. Brute-force incremental learning in IBL continuously accumulates reference patterns, which is a problem because it not only slows down the classification but also downgrades the recall performance. Regarding the latter phenomenon, we observed a tendency that as the number of reference patterns grows, some reference patterns contribute more to the false positive classification. Thus, we devised an algorithm for optimizing the reference pattern set based on the positive and negative contribution of each reference pattern. The algorithm is performed periodically to remove reference patterns that have a very low positive contribution or a high negative contribution. Experiments were performed on 6500 gesture patterns collected from 50 adults of 30~50 years old. Each alphabet was performed 5 times per participant using $Nintendo{(R)}$ $Wii^{TM}$ remote. Acceleration signal was sampled in 100hz on 3 axes. Mean recall rate for all the alphabets was 95.48%. Some alphabets recorded very low recall rate and exhibited very high pairwise confusion rate. Major confusion pairs are D(88%) and P(74%), I(81%) and U(75%), N(88%) and W(100%). Though W was recalled perfectly, it contributed much to the false positive classification of N. By comparison with major previous results from VTT (96% for 8 control gestures), CMU (97% for 10 control gestures) and Samsung Electronics(97% for 10 digits and a control gesture), we could find that the performance of our system is superior regarding the number of pattern classes and the complexity of patterns. Using our gesture interaction system, we conducted 2 case studies of robot-based edutainment services. The services were implemented on various robot platforms and mobile devices including $iPhone^{TM}$. The participating children exhibited improved concentration and active reaction on the service with our gesture interface. To prove the effectiveness of our gesture interface, a test was taken by the children after experiencing an English teaching service. The test result showed that those who played with the gesture interface-based robot content marked 10% better score than those with conventional teaching. We conclude that the accelerometer-based gesture interface is a promising technology for flourishing real-world robot-based services and content by complementing the limits of today's conventional interfaces e.g. touch screen, vision and voice.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.16 no.10
• /
• pp.503-513
• /
• 2016

Innovator and Early Adopter are main clients of smart phone until now, but the silver generation enjoying price stability and the Internet emerges, so a strategy of the importance, systematic classification, and focus of a neglected class is needed. It is necessary to analyze UI that can departmentalize not a neglected class limited to the silver generation but potential users who can be voluntarily users and can secure them. To secure them, the researcher analyzes how Windows, Icons, Mouse Pull-Down-Menus(WIMP) of UI has been applied in the process that skeuomorphism UI of iPhone, Metro UI of MS, and Material UI of Google change. As a result of an analysis, skeuomorphism is not entirely new and has secured potential users slowly with a method to compensate and improve a part that users disregard. As a concept of touch UI, Metro UI considered potential users from the beginning but did not secure them with new and epoch-making UI. However, Material UI of Google compensates the weaknesses of skeuomorphism UI and Metro UI and emphasizes cost-effectiveness, so has developed into UI that can secure final consumers of potential users. Therefore, to secure potential users, it should make users themselves understand why they should use smart phone, and it should approach with more organized studies on UI through feedback of observation and direct talks.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.293-304
• /
• 2011

The world of ubiquitous computing is one in which we will be surrounded by an ever-richer set of networked devices and services. Especially, mobile phone now becomes one of the key issues in ubiquitous computing environments. Mobile phones have been infecting our normal lives more thoroughly, and are the fastest technology in human history that has been adapted to people. In Korea, the number of mobile phones registered to the telecom company, is more than the population of the country. Last year, the numbers of mobile phone sold are many times more than the number of personal computer sold. The new advanced technology of mobile phone is now becoming the most concern on every field of technologies. The mix of wireless communication technology (wifi) and mobile phone (smart phone) has made a new world of ubiquitous computing and people can always access to the network anywhere, in high speed, and easily. In such a world, people cannot expect to have available to us specific applications that allow them to accomplish every conceivable combination of information that they might wish. They are willing to have information they want at easy way, and fast way, compared to the world we had before, where we had to have a desktop, cable connection, limited application, and limited speed to achieve what they want. Instead, now people can believe that many of their interactions will be through highly generic tools that allow end-user discovery, configuration, interconnection, and control of the devices around them. Serendipity is an application of the architecture that will help people to solve a concern of achieving their information. The word 'serendipity', introduced to scientific fields in eighteenth century, is the meaning of making new discoveries by accidents and sagacity. By combining to the field of ubiquitous computing and smart phone, it will change the way of achieving the information. Serendipity may enable professional practitioners to function more effectively in the unpredictable, dynamic environment that informs the reality of information seeking. This paper designs the Serendipity Service based on NFC (Near Field Communication) technology. When users of NFC smart phone get information and services by touching the NFC tags, serendipity service will be core services which will give an unexpected but valuable finding. This paper proposes the architecture, scenario and the interface of serendipity service using tag touch data, serendipity cases, serendipity rule base and user profile.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
• /
• v.28 no.6
• /
• pp.517-524
• /
• 2003

There have been worldwide research and development efforts to automate various processes of bio-production and those efforts will be expanded with priority given to tasks which require high intensive labor or produce high value-added product and tasks under hostile environment. In the field of bio-production capabilities of the versatility and robustness of automated system have been major bottlenecks along with economical efficiency. This paper introduces a new concept of automation based on tole-operation, which can provide solutions to overcome inherent difficulties in automating bio-production processes. Operator(farmer), computer, and automatic machinery share their roles utilizing their maximum merits to accomplish given tasks successfully. Among processes of greenhouse watermelon cultivation tasks such as pruning, watering, pesticide application, and harvest with loading were chosen based on the required labor intensiveness and functional similarities to realize the proposed concept. The developed system was composed of 5 major hardware modules such as wireless remote monitoring and task control module, wireless remote image acquisition and data transmission module, gantry system equipped with 4 d.o.f. Cartesian type robotic manipulator, exchangeable modular type end-effectors, and guided watermelon loading and storage module. The system was operated through the graphic user interface using touch screen monitor and wireless data communication among operator, computer, and machine. The proposed system showed practical and feasible way of automation in the field of volatile bio-production process.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
• /
• v.44 no.2 s.314
• /
• pp.37-46
• /
• 2007

In this paper, we propose technologies for enhancing the immersive realization of virtual objects in AR-based product design. Generally, multimodal senses such as visual/auditory/tactile feedback are well known as a method for enhancing the immersion in case of interaction with virtual objects. By adapting tangible objects we can provide touch sensation to users. A 3D model of the same scale overlays the whole area of the tangible object so the marker area is invisible. This contributes to enhancing immersion. Also, the hand occlusion problem when the virtual objects overlay the user's hands is partially solved, providing more immersive and natural images to users. Finally, multimodal feedback also creates better immersion. In our work, both vibrotactile feedback through page motors, pneumatic tactile feedback, and sound feedback are considered. In our scenario, a game-phone model is selected, by way of proposed augmented vibrotactile feedback, hands occlusion-reduced visual effects and sound feedback are provided to users. These proposed methodologies will contribute to a better immersive realization of the conventional AR system.