• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.1014-1020
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• 2011

This presents a motion and force estimation system of human fingers by using an Electromyography (EMG) sensor module and a data glove system to be proposed in this paper. Both EMG sensor module and data glove system are developed in such a way to minimize the number of hardware filters in acquiring the signals as well as to reduce their sizes for the wearable. Since the onset of EMG precedes the onset of actual finger movement by dozens to hundreds milliseconds, we show that it is possible to predict the pattern of finger movement before actual movement by using the suggested system. Also, we are to suggest how to estimate the grasping force of hand based on the relationship between RMS taken EMG signal and the applied load. Finally we show the effectiveness of the suggested estimation system through several experiments.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.69-75
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• 2012

This paper proposes a biomimetic finger module to be used in a lightweight hand prosthesis. The finger module consists of finger skeleton and an actuator module driven by SMA (Shape Memory Alloy). The prototype finger module can perform flexion and extension motions; finger flexion is driven by a contraction force of SMA, but it is extended by an elastic force of an extension spring inserted into the finger skeleton. The finger motions are controlled by feedback of electric resistance of SMA because the finger module has no sensors to measure length and angle. Total weight of a prototype finger module is 30g. In experiments the finger motions and finger grip force are tested and compared with simulation results when a constant contraction force of SMA is given. The experimental results show that the proposed SMA-driven finger module is feasible to the lightweight hand prosthesis.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2014.10a
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• pp.231-232
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• 2014

We develop a remote control system of a walking robot using a Leap motion sensor. Hand gestures and the position of fingers are provided from the Leap motion sensor. We use Processing and the LeapMotionP5 library for the development software.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.1925-1936
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• 2010

In this paper, multi-legged robot was designed and produced using stable walking pattern algorithm. The robot had embedded camera and wireless communication function and it is possible to recognize both hand posture and obstacles. The algorithm decided moving paths, and recognized and avoided obstacles through Hough Transform using Edge Detection of inputed image from image sensor. The robot can be controlled by hand posture using Mahalanobis Distance and average value of skin's color pixel, which is previously learned in order to decide the destination. The developed system has shown obstacle detection rate of 96% and hand posture recognition rate of 94%.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.473-480
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• 2013

This paper describes the design of a rectangular-type four-finger rehabilitation robot for flexibility rehabilitation of stroke patients' fingers and other patient's paralyzed fingers. The four-finger rehabilitation robot is composed of a body and each finger rehabilitation robot instrument. The four-finger rehabilitation robot could exercise four fingers (forefinger, middle finger ring finger and little finger) of patient for their rehabilitation. The four-finger rehabilitation robot instruments move according to the trace which spread out the patient's fingers and then turn them inward for the fingers' flexibility, while at the same time performing the force control with the reference forces for fingers' safety, simultaneously. A control characteristic test of the developed rectangular-type four-finger rehabilitation robot was carried out, and the results confirmed that the robot could be used for the flexibility rehabilitation exercise for the fingers of normal person and patients.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.964-969
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• 2012

Robot hands capable of grasping or handling various objects are important for service robots to effectively aid humans. In particular, controlling a contact force and providing a compliant motion are essential when the hand is in contact with objects. Many dexterous robot hands equipped with force/torque sensors have been developed to perform force control, but they suffer from the complexity of control and high cost. In this paper, a low-cost robot hand based on SEA (Series Elastic Actuator), which is composed of compression spring, stretch sensor, and wire, is proposed. The grasping force can be estimated by measuring the compression length of spring, which would allow the hand to perform force control. A series of experimentations are carried out to verify the performance of force control of the proposed robot hand, and it is shown that it can successfully control the contact force without any additional force/torque sensors.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.6 no.7
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• pp.568-577
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• 2000

In this paper for an object grasped by a robot hand to work in stiffness control domain we first investigate the number of fingers for successful stiffness modulation in the object operational space. Next we propose a new compliance control method for robot hands which consist of two steps. RIFDS(Resolved Inter-Finger Decoupling Solver) is to decompose the desired compliance characteristic specified in the op-erational space into the compliance characteristic in the fingertip space without inter-finger coupling and RIJDS(Resolved Inter-Joint Decoupling Solver) is to decompose the fingertip space without inter-finger coupling and RIJDS(Resolved inter-Joint Decoupling Solver) is to decompose the compliance characteristic in the finger-tip space into the compliance characteristic given in the joint space without inter-joint coupling. Based on the analysis results the finger structure should be biominetic in the sense that either kniematic redundancy or force redundancy are required to implement the proposed compliance control scheme, Five-bar fingered robot hands are used as an illustrative example to implement the proposed compliance control method. To show the effectiveness of the proposed compliance control method simulations are performed for two-fingered and three-fingered robot hands.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.5440-5445
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• 2014

Many studies have examined robot control using human bio signals but complicated signal processing and expensive hardware are necessary. This study proposes a method to recognize a human's hand motion using a low-cost EMG sensor and Flex sensor. The method to classify movement of the hand and finger is determined from the change in output voltage measured through MCU. The analog reference voltage is determined to be 3.3V to increase the resolution of movement identification through experiment. The robotic hand is designed to realize the identified movement. The hand has four fingers and a wrist that are controlled using pneumatic cylinders and a DC servo motor, respectively. The results show that the proposed simple method can realize human hand motion in a remote environment using the fabricated robotic hand.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.30 no.4 s.247
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• pp.357-363
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• 2006

According to the study of grasping of the human hand, it is noted that the metacarpal link of the thumb plays the key role in power grasping. Also the face of fingertip can be discriminated into five parts depending on the grasping modalities such as pinch grasp, fingertip grasp and power grasp. In this paper, the design of the anthropomorphic robot hand which has a thumb and three fingers is proposed. A difference of SKKU hand II from the previous gripperlike robot hand is that the metacarpal bone is connected between the thumb and the palm. This thumb mechanism is specially designed to get the degree of freedom which can realize flexible motions relative to objects. Based on the analysis, the hand mechanism is developed. Since the driving circuits for the hand are embedded in the hand, only the communication lines supporting CAN protocol with DC power cable are necessary as the input. A new robot is manufactured and feasibility of the hand is validated through preliminary experiments.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.16 no.9
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• pp.876-882
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• 2010

Stroke patients can't use their hands because of the paralysis their fingers. Their fingers are recovered by rehabilitating training, and the rehabilitating extent can be judged by measuring the pressing force to be contacted with two fingers (thumb and first finger, thumb and middle finger, thumb and ring finger, thumb and little finger). But, at present, the grasping finger force of two-finger can't be accurately measured, because there is not a proper finger-force measuring system. Therefore, doctors can't correctly judge the rehabilitating extent. So, the finger-force measuring system which can measure the grasping force of two-finger must be developed. In this paper, the finger-force measuring system with a three-axis force sensor which can measure the pressing force was developed. The three-axis force sensor was designed and fabricated, and the force measuring device was designed and manufactured using DSP (Digital Signal Processing). Also, the grasping force test of men was performed using the developed finger-force measuring system, it was confirmed that the grasping forces of men were different according to grasping methods.