• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.93-102
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• 2011

This paper presents a walking guidance system for blind pedestrians in an outdoor environment using just one single camera. Unlike many existing travel-aid systems that rely on stereo-vision, the proposed system aims to get necessary information of the road environment by using just single camera fixed at the belly of the user. To achieve this goal, a top-view image of the road is used, on which obstacles are detected by first extracting local extreme points and then verified by the polar edge histogram. Meanwhile, user motion is estimated by using optical flow in an area close to the user. Based on these information extracted from image domain, an audio message generation scheme is proposed to deliver guidance instructions via synthetic voice to the blind user. Experiments with several sidewalk video-clips show that the proposed walking guidance system is able to provide useful guidance instructions under certain sidewalk environments.

• Journal of Korean Medical Ki-Gong Academy
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.28-71
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• 2023

Objective : From March 2018 to July 2022, H Korean Medicine Hospital conducted a guidance on Gigong training using the Moosim Gigong Doinbeop and Moosim Gigong Walking. This report intends to report the results and share the specific methods of a guidance on Gigong training used in the process of implementation, thereby helping the research of a guidance on Gigong training later. Methods : The methods and results of the implementation of Moosim Gigong Doinbeop and Moosim Gigong Walking implemented by H Korean Medicine Hospital were reported. For the movements of Doinbeop, the posture and movements, the precautions to be taken when guiding, the alternative movements, and the meaning of the movements were summarized. For Moosim Gigong Walking, the method of progress, the method of motion, precautions to be taken, and replaceable movements were summarized. The method of implementing the guidance on Gigong training for severely ill and elderly patients was introduced. The application cases that were applied to some diseases and effective were recorded. Results : At H Korean Medicine Hospital, Moosim Gigong Doinbeop and Moosim Gigong Walking were conducted in the form of an open lecture, and 4,682 patients attended the Doinbeop class and 3,373 patients attended the Walking class. There is no restriction on the type of disease of the participating patients. The attending physician recommends and the patient wishes, the patient participates in the course. Conclusions : Curing technology is a long-standing treatment method of Korean Medicine, but it has not yet been activated in the modern Korean Medicine system. Research on the guidance on Gigong training can be conducted to establish itself as a new treatment method for Korean Medicine.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.696-703
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• 2014

In this paper, we present a walking guidance system for the visually impaired for use at subway stations. This system, which is based on environmental knowledge, automatically detects and recognizes both exit numbers and arrow signs from natural outdoor scenes. The visually impaired can, therefore, utilize the system to find their own way (for example, using exit numbers and the directions provided) through a subway station. The proposed walking guidance system consists mainly of three stages: (a) sign detection using the MCT-based AdaBoost technique, (b) sign recognition using support vector machines and hidden Markov models, and (c) three verification techniques to discriminate between signs and non-signs. The experimental results indicate that our sign recognition system has a high performance with a detection rate of 98%, a recognition rate of 99.5%, and a false-positive error rate of 0.152.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.320-328
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• 2021

As the number of visually impaired people steadily increases, interest in independent walking is also increasing. However, there are various inconveniences in the independent walking of the visually impaired at present, reducing the quality of life of the visually impaired. The white cane, which is an existing walking aid for the visually impaired, has difficulty in recognizing upper obstacles and obstacles outside the effective distance. In addition, it is inconvenient to cross the street because the sound signal to help the visually impaired cross the crosswalk is lacking or damaged. These factors make it difficult for the visually impaired to walk independently. Therefore, we propose the design of an embedded system that provides traffic light recognition through object recognition technology, voice guidance using TTS, and upper obstacle recognition through ultrasonic sensors so that blind people can realize safe and high-quality independent walking.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.522-525
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• 2015

In this paper, we propose a walking aid system that guides route to visually impaired people in order to recognize uncertain obstacles based on tactile stimulation. The proposed system is composed of the touch-based obstacle detection module, the obstacle height detection module, and the route guidance algorithms. The touch-based obstacle detection module detects each obstacle, which is located at left, right, and front of a visually impaired person by stimulating his thumb with the rotational force of the servomotor. The obstacle height detection module integrates detected data by the linear arrangement of ultrasonic sensors to identify the height of an obstacle about 3 of-phase(i.e., high, medium, low). The proposed route guidance algorithm guides an optimized path to the visually impaired person by updating his current position information based on the signal of the built-in GPS receiver in smartphone. In addition, the route guidance algorithm delivers information with speech to a visually impaired person through Bluetooth commuination in the developed route guidance app. The proposed system can create a path to avoid the obstacles by recognizing the placed situation of the obstacles with exploring the uncertain path.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1997 no.05
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• pp.131-135
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• 1997

We implementated an ultrasonic wave cane for the blind. The cane detect walking obstacle and provide a walking direction. The cane used time of flight method of ultrasonic-wave for a measurement of obstacle distance and fluxgate geomagnetic sensor for guidance of walking direction. This system can detect an obstacle of upward, forward, downward and that warn to the blind with vibration, pitch sound. And the blind can know walking direction to voice output. As a result, the blind could efficiently avoid a exposed obstacle, obstacles beyond knee, an exposed street obstacle, a branch of tree person's height and it is usable search for surrounding land mark.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.31-38
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• 2020

In this paper, we compare and analyze smart technologies and present six obstacle detection features to help visually impaired people walk. Traditionally, visually impaired people walk with the white cane or a guide dog. With the development of IoT technology, various smart walking aids systems have been developed. Those intelligent walking aids systems have obstacle-detecting systems and route-guidance systems. Many researchers are developing the walking aids system, which detects an obstacle and provides the obstacle information by haptic feedback. Also, they are designing the database server system to share the obstacle information. Particularly the composed system can quickly give an obstacle-avoidance route using shared obstacle information. Smart walking aids systems for visually impaired people will advance more rapidly by applying machine learning and intelligent systems.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.279-289
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• 2011

The latest hardware and software techniques are combined to give safe walking guidance and convenient service of realtime walking assistance system for visually impaired person. This system consists of obstacle detection and perception, place recognition, and sign recognition for pedestrian can safely walking to arrive at their destination. In this paper, we exploit the sign object detection system in subway station for sign recognition that one of the important factors of walking assistance system. This paper suggest the adaptive feature map that can be robustly extract the sign object region from complexed environment with light and noise. And recognize a sign using fast zernike moment features which is invariant under translation, rotation and scale of object during walking. We considered three types of signs as arrow, restroom, and exit number and perform the training and recognizing steps through adaboost classifier. The experimental results prove that our method can be suitable and stable for real-time system through yields on the average 87.16% stable detection rate and 20 frame/sec of operation time for three types of signs in 5000 images of sign database.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.3610-3618
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• 2015

The congestion of railway vehicle and station shows up to 220%. Especially, transfer resistance of passenger increase rapidly by the collision of circulation. So increment of travel time, occurrence of safety accidents act as a factor that inhibits the utilization of urban railway station. In this paper, to improve traveling speed and comfort of urban rail passengers, urban transit passenger guidance system using congestion management model is proposed. The congestion management model that can mitigate a recurring/non-recurring congestion is constructed and the preliminary design of the system (middleware system, control system, guidance drive system) is carried out. Passenger Guidance System is configured by step for changing the external data into a form usable by the algorithm, step to perform the congestion management algorithm using the real-time data and historical data, step to control device based on the value that is calculated by congestion management algorithm, step to drive the device based on the information in the control system and circulation guidance devices. In the future, detail design will be performed based on the preliminary design. A prototype of the various devices according to the station structures and locations will be made. The control module of guidance device will be developed.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.246-250
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• 2006

The objective of this research was to investigate the way information is used by pedestrians in underground space. Furthermore, we wanted to know how pedestrians utilize information from signage of signs by pedestrians. Thus, we conducted an investigation on the pedestrians' walking behavior in Fukuoka City, Tenjin underground shopping centers, and 1) checked routes taken by the subjects; and 2) categorized the signs that were observed, the pedestrians' movement patterns, the way information from signage isused by the pedestrians, the signs' locations, the relationship between the spaces, the heights of the signs and the types of signs offering directions. The results showed that there is a need to solve certain problems related to the locations of the signs and the walking behaviors of the subjects. To solve the problems exhibited by the subjects' walking behaviors, we came up with a variety of guidance information that could be used. The contents of the guidance information differ depending on the specified heights for the placement of signs and the information used depending on the location. The results also showed that the continuity between places needs to be shown more effectively by the guidance system, and that too many signs are positioned in places where the frequency of use is low.