• Journal of Urban Science
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to evaluate accessibility condition of buildings in a college from manual wheel chair users' perspective in order to suggest improvements, and to develop 3D accessibility maps in order to assist manual wheelchair users' prior planning for the building use. In May 2020, on-site investigation was held to three buildings in Chungbuk National University. Major findings were as follows. (1) There were some building entrances that showed level difference over 2cm without proper ramp with slow slope 1/8 or less. (2) Some rooms were found to have accessibility issues to have floors with height more than 2cm, and/or to have no height-adjustable desks. (3) Although accessible restrooms were in good condition for manual wheelchair users' access and use, it is suggested to install accessible restroom for each gender in each floor for better access. Using the study results, 2-dimensional accessibility maps for each floor were developed in color and grayscale, which were further developed into 3-dimensional accessibility maps for each building.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics S
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• v.35S no.11
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• pp.75-87
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• 1998

KARES (KAIST Rehabilitation Engineering System) is the rehabilitation robot system in the type of the 6 degrees of freedom robot arm mounted on the wheelchair, in order to assist the independent livelihood of the disabled and the elderly. The interface device for programming and controlling of the robot arm is essential in the rehabilitation robotic system. Specially, in the case of the manual operation of the robot arm, the user has the burden of cognition and the difficulty for the operation of the robot arm. As a remedy, color vision system for the autonomous performance of jobs is proposed, and four basic desired jobs are specified. By mounting the camera in eye-in-hand type, color vision system for KARES is set up. The desired jobs for picking up the target and moving it to the user's face for drinking are successfully performed in real-time at the indoor environment.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.81-87
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• 2015

In order for a Power Assisted Wheelchair (PAW) to maintain a straight driving direction, the same force must be delivered to both wheels. However, a human has different strength between the right and left arms, and cannot control the force uniformly at all times. Therefore, appropriate assist torque shall be generated from unbalanced human torque inputs by detecting the user intention, in order to maintain direction uniformly in straight sections or change direction quickly in curved sections. In this study, a special function is proposed to detect the intention of drivers on the basis of temporal similarity between the input torque signals, and a torque balancing technique based on this function is proposed. In the experiments, the effectiveness of the proposed torque balancing method are verified.

• Journal of The Korea Institute of Healthcare Architecture
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.79-87
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• 2018

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide logical basis on enlargement of toilet floor space for the disabled by "ACT ON GUARANTEE OF PROMOTION OF CONVENIENCE OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES, THE AGED, PREGNANT WOMEN. ETC" Revised Enforcement regulation [Asterisk 1] (2018.2.10.) and to help with making plans, designs and establishing policies by conducting experimental study with the enhanced floor area regulations. Methods: We conduct Experimental study, field work and interview for this paper. In experimental study, verification of the effective floor area was proceeded by measuring activity space for people in manual wheelchair, electric wheel chair and electric scooter and also reviewed useable area with the space expanded 0.2m both width and depth. In filed work, conducted an observation what other things (ex. sanitary equipment, hand rail and so on) can also affect the active space as well as effective floor space. In the interview, other problems and requirements that were not revealed were experimental study and observation of field work. Results : it's expected to provide better access to toilets for the disabled with the law revision of effective floor area. But, with the usage increasement of enlarged wheel chair and electric wheel chair, expanding side areas of toilet is also highly likely to be required going forward. Implications : Additional research is required on locations of exists and internal arrangement that effect the usage of toilet. It should be led to Universal design by making additional investigation and verification of the users patterns.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.225-234
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• 2016

An online suit-customizing system for the special accessibility needs of wheelchair users should be developed because the demand for business suits by wheelchair users involved in economic activities has increased. This study develops a user interface an online customizing system for men's suits specialized for wheelchair users. This study used a five-step approach: (1) search for online men's suits customizing system in web porter sites, (2) select three sites based on three terms, (3) heuristic testing with five web specialists, (4) development of a system user interface based on suggestions for improvement from the heuristic test, (5) usability testing of the user interface prototype by 10 disabled men in wheelchairs. The interface of Company S had high ratings on interactivity, accessibility, informativeness, and consistency in the heuristic test results; subsequently, a user interface was developed based on suggestions for improvement from the heuristic test. This online user interface for customizing men's suits provides better usability to wheelchair users than existing online interfaces aimed at the non-disabled and disabled; consequently, this study contributes to the commercialization of an online customizing system for men's suits specializing in serving wheelchair users.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.23-33
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• 2017

This study was aimed to assess accessibility situation of pedestrian environment of University-C focusing on accessibility of manual wheelchair users and to develop accessibility campus map. During March and April 2016, barrierfree design application situation of pedestrian environment and building entrances were investigated using a structured checklist and a digital distance and slope meter. Major findings are as follow. (1) Except one case, widths of all pedestrian routes (both sidewalk and non-sidewalk routes) exceeded 2 meters. (2) As for sidewalk and driveway contact point condition, there were many spots lacking curb ramp or alterative ramp that are accessible for manual wheelchair users. (3) More than half of non-sidewalk pedestrian routes did not have bollard to separate pedestrian and vehicle flows, and more than 92% of the bollards installed were too close for wheelchair users to pass or too far to prevent vehicle access. (4) More than 59 percent of the building entrances were found impossible for manual wheelchair users to access without any assistance, and one third of the buildings did not have any single accessible entrance. Based on the study findings, campus accessibility map was developed by the researchers and disseminated through university homepage. Using the campus accessibility map, users can plan their accessible paths ahead the trip.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.127-132
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• 2020

In this study, the process of providing information necessary to remove physical barriers such as road slopes that obstruct the activities of the disabled is in progress. Through experiments, we implement a quantified road surface roughness index that enables the implementation of IoT-based systems necessary for the elderly and the disabled to safely move to their destination. As a preliminary study, a road surface measurement device using a gyroscope was devised. To check the roughness and flatness of the road surface, X, Y displacement, and acceleration displacement were measured using a gyroscope. By calculating the measured data, the roughness and flatness of the road surface were quantified from 0 to 100. We implemented an algorithm that divides this index into 4 stages, displays it on a map, and provides it to users. Finally, a system for the disabled and elderly electric wheelchair users to secure basic mobility was established.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.415-424
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• 2019

In this paper, a minimum rotation radius was designed and fabricated to overcome the threshold so that elderly or disabled people who have difficulty moving can move and transfer safely and conveniently in a narrow room. In the indoor environment, where the sedentary culture develops, this study aimed to provide convenience for passengers with fracture diseases, geriatric diseases, and other knee and waist diseases. First, links, seats, armrests, covers, motors, batteries, chargers, controllers, etc. were attached to the frame so that they could be moved and lifted indoors. The product design and structure were designed considering the user's environment and physical characteristics, and IoT functions were added. A driving experiment was performed to confirm the operating performance of the manufactured indoor moving and lifting wheelchair. The performance tests, such as continuous running time, turning radius, maximum actuator load, maximum lift height, sound pressure level, minimum sensing distance of the driving aid sensor, interworking of server and app programs, device compatibility, and duty cycle error rate, were performed. As a result of the test, the built-in wheelchair could achieve the performance test target of each item and operate successfully.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.20 no.4 s.94
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• pp.67-81
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• 2005

생체신호 기반 인터페이스 기술이란 근전도 및 뇌파와 같은 인위적으로 발생 가능한 생체 신호를 이용하여, 노약자나 장애인이 컴퓨터를 이용하는 데 있어서의 인터페이스(Human-Computer Interface)로 사용하거나 휠체어 등의 재활기기 구동 제어를 위한 명령어를 생성하기 위한 기술을 의미한다. 생체신호 기반 인터페이스는 센서를 몸에 부착하여 사용하며 사용자의 의도에 의해 자연스럽게 생성된 생체신호를 이용하기 때문에 가상현실, 착용형 컴퓨터나 지체 장애인용 인터페이스로 활용될 수 있을 것으로 기대된다. 본 논문에서는 이러한 생체신호 기반의 인터페이스에 관한 국내외 기술 동향과 현재 개발중인 HCI 시스템에 대한 개요에 대해 논하고자한다.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.250-258
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• 2007

Current speech recognition technology s achieved high performance with the development of hardware devices, however it is insufficient for some applications where high reliability is required, such as voice control of powered wheelchairs for disabled persons. For the system which aims to operate powered wheelchairs safely by voice in real environment, we need to consider that non-voice commands such as user s coughing, breathing, and spark-like mechanical noise should be rejected and the wheelchair system need to recognize the speech commands affected by disability, which contains specific pronunciation speed and frequency. In this paper, we propose non-voice rejection method to perform voice/non-voice classification using both YIN based fundamental frequency(F0) extraction and reliability in preprocessing. We adopted a multi-template dictionary and acoustic modeling based speaker adaptation to cope with the pronunciation variation of inarticulately uttered speech. From the recognition tests conducted with the data collected in real environment, proposed YIN based fundamental extraction showed recall-precision rate of 95.1% better than that of 62% by cepstrum based method. Recognition test by a new system applied with multi-template dictionary and MAP adaptation also showed much higher accuracy of 99.5% than that of 78.6% by baseline system.