• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.19 no.8
• /
• pp.260-267
• /
• 2018

Surface electromyography (sEMG) is mainly used as an on/off switch in the early stage of the study and was then expanded to navigational control of powered-wheelchairs and recognition of sign language or finger gestures. There are difficulties in communication between people who know and do not know sign language; therefore, many efforts have been made to recognize sign language or finger gestures. Recently, use of sEMG signals to recognize sign language signals have been investigated; however, most studies of this topic conducted to date have focused on Chinese finger number gestures. Since sign language and finger gestures vary among regions, Korean- and Chinese-finger number gestures differ from each other. Accordingly, the recognition performance of Korean finger number gestures based on sEMG signals can be severely degraded if the same muscles are specified as for Chinese finger number gestures. However, few studies of Korean finger number gestures based on sEMG signals have been conducted. Thus, this study was conducted to identify potential forearm muscles from which to collect sEMG signals for Korean finger number gestures. To accomplish this, six Korean finger number gestures from number zero to five were investigated to determine the usefulness of the proposed muscles and electrode placements by showing that CNN technique based on sEMG signal after sufficient learning recognizes six Korean finger number gestures in accuracy of 100%.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.21 no.7
• /
• pp.419-427
• /
• 2020

This study was undertaken to address the difficulties and inconveniences of an electric wheelchair. We focused on improving usability of initially completed products by augmenting the prototypes designed in the previous study. For evaluation of usability, 10 elderly women aged over 65 years, capable of movements and physical activities in daily life, were enrolled as subjects. The experimental method included a subjective satisfaction questionnaire evaluation of the elderly women using the target product, and the observation evaluation was achieved using video recording data, etc. Usability evaluation revealed that the elevating sector requires improvement of intuition through separation of the elevating control panel and the driving control panel. Improvements in the driving sector include corrections of the front wheel mechanism or driving control algorithm, UI, and sudden stop system. Transferring section assessment revealed a necessity to secure structures and add structures that support power. We believe that based on the inconveniences and improvements presented in the usability evaluation, appending the existing prototype with complementary products will improve the quality of life of elderly women with limited mobility.

• The Korean Journal of Air & Space Law and Policy
• /
• v.31 no.1
• /
• pp.63-97
• /
• 2016

Ago the passenger who using a wheelchair was denied boarding from the airline. The ACT ON THE PROHIBITION OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST DISABLED PERSONS prohibits discriminatory treatment of persons with disabilities in transportation. But there are situations that limits the movement on persons with reduced mobility. The international community promote to protect disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility against discrimination and to provide them with assistance when travelling by air. According to news report, the governing Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has established new global core principles on air transport consumer protection. The principles cover three phases of a customer's experience: before, during and after travel, and will now be considered by ICAO's 191 Member States when they develop or review their applicable national regimes. The international community are recognizing that passengers can benefit from a competitive air transport sector, which offers more choice in fare-service trade-offs and which may encourage carriers to improve their offerings, passengers, including those with disabilities, can also benefit from consumer protection regimes. In accordance with these we will also be provided to regulations that can prevent and protect the air passenger. In this paper analyze the regulations of the international air passenger rights, point out the lack of policy.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.45-54
• /
• 2020

This study investigated basic data on walking characteristics, including walking speed and cognitive-response for the elderly, and based on these, the time of walking signal was calculated. The on-site survey examined the actual pedestrian crossing speed using a stopwatch, and the age was divided into groups of ordinary people and the elderly. Analysis of the data showed that the average walking speed for the general public was 1.29 m/s, while the average walking speed for the elderly was 1.13 m/s, higher than that of the general public. In addition, the lower speed of the 15th percentile was analyzed to 1.01 m/s for the general population and 0.85 m/s for the elderly, showing a lower walking speed than the standard for the general area and 0.8 m/s for the protected area. However, for senior citizens who use walking sticks or wheelchairs, the speed of the lower 15th-percentile is 0.73 m/s, which is lower than the current standard of protected areas, according to the analysis.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.93-100
• /
• 2006

This paper aims at the development and clinical evaluation of the wireless gyro-mouse system. The wireless gyro-mouse system is a computer interface with gyro-sensor and wireless communication, for the patients with upper-extremity disabled from the traffic accident or stroke to use the computer software i.e. internet browser. In the development, we focused on, firstly, to make the system wireless for the patients to manipulate the mouse easily even on the bed or wheelchair, secondly, to insert the gyro-sensor into a headband for easy don-and-doff and aesthetic appearance, thirdly, to devise a click switch in case of $C5{\sim}C6$ patients and a head nodding detection in case of C4 patients for sending click message to computer operating system. We performed evaluation experiment for patients with upper-extremities disabled from spinal cord injury. The results show that the displacement error of the cursor position against the target position during linear (vertical/horizontal) movement manipulation decreased with trial number. The click rate per minute also increased with trial number. This indicates the developed wireless gyro-mouse system would be more useful to the patients with repetitive use.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.90-95
• /
• 2014

The researchs using brain-computer interface, the new interface system which connect human to macine, have been maded to implement the user-assistance devices for control of wheelchairs or input the characters. In recent researches, there are several trials to implement the speech recognitions system based on the brain wave and attempt to silent communication. In this paper, we studied how to extract features of vowel based on international phonetic alphabet (IPA), as a foundation step for implementing of speech recognition system based on electroencephalogram (EEG). We conducted the 2 step experiments with three healthy male subjects, and first step was speaking imagery with single vowel and second step was imagery with successive two vowels. We selected 32 channels, which include frontal lobe related to thinking and temporal lobe related to speech function, among acquired 64 channels. Eigen value of the signal was used for feature vector and support vector machine (SVM) was used for classification. As a result of first step, we should use over than 10th order of feature vector to analyze the EEG signal of speech and if we used 11th order feature vector, the highest average classification rate was 95.63 % in classification between /a/ and /o/, the lowest average classification rate was 86.85 % with /a/ and /u/. In the second step of the experiments, we studied the difference of speech imaginary signals between single and successive two vowels.

• Physical Therapy Korea
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.1-8
• /
• 2017

Background: Individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI) rely on their upper limbs for body-lifting activity (BLA). While studies have examined the electromyography (EMG) and kinematics of the shoulder joints during BLA, no studies have considered foot position during BLA. Objects: This study compared the effects of different foot positions during BLA on the shoulder muscle activities, peak plantar pressure, knee flexion angle, and rating perceived exertion in individuals with SCI. Methods: The study enrolled 13 mens with motor-complete paraplegic SCI, ASIA (American Spinal Injury Association) A or B. All subjects performed BLA with the feet positioned on the wheelchair footrest and on the floor independently. Surface EMG was used to collect data from the latissimus dorsi, pectoralis major, serratus anterior, and triceps brachii. The peak plantar pressure was measured using pedar-X and the knee flexion angle with Image J. Borg's rating perceived exertion scale was used to measure the physical activity intensity level. The paired t-test was used to compare the shoulder muscle activities, peak plantar pressure, knee flexion angle, and rating perceived exertion between the two feet positions during BLA. Results: The activity of the latissimus dorsi, pectoralis major, serratus anterior, and triceps brachii and rating perceived exertion decreased significantly and the peak plantar pressure and knee flexion angle increased significantly when performing BLA with the feet positioned on the wheelchair footrest compared with on the floor (p<.05). Conclusion: These findings suggest that individuals with SCI may perform BLA with the feet positioned on the wheelchair footrest for weight-relief lifting to decrease the shoulder muscle activities and the rating perceived exertion and to increase the peak plantar pressure and the knee flexion angle.

• The Journal of Korean society of community based occupational therapy
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.21-31
• /
• 2013

Objective : This study was aimed to survey the present situation and satisfaction in assistive technology of the physically disabled person. Method : 110 patients, being diagnosed with spinal cord injury and stroke, were chosen and structured interview was carried out using by a questionnaire. Result : The followings are the results of this study. First, spinal cord injury(76.2%) and stroke(72.5%) patients used the most wheelchair and mobility devices in assistive technology device. Second, they were satisfied in effectiveness of assistive technology device. Third, spinal cord injury(39.4%) patients used the most repair service in assistive technology service. Fourth, stroke(28.2%) patients used the most application and training service. Fifth, they were satisfied in professionality while were dissatisfied in service delivery program. Conclusion : The results of this study would contribute to better assistive technology for the physically disabled person.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.51-58
• /
• 2013

As it is changing into aging society, rehabilitation, welfare and sports industry markets are being expanded fast. Especially, the field of vital signals interface to control welfare instruments like wheelchair, rehabilitation ones like an artificial arm and leg and general electronic ones is a new technology field in the future. Also, this technology can help not only the handicapped, the old and the weak and the rehabilitation patients but also the general public in various application field. The commercial bio-signal measurement instruments and interface systems are complicated, expensive and large-scaled. So, there are a lot of limitations for using in real life with ease. this thesis proposes a wireless transmission interface system that uses EMG(electromyogram) signals and a control module to manipulate hardware systems with portable size. We have designed a hardware module that receives the EMG signals occurring at the time of wrist movement and eliminated noises with filter and amplified the signals effectively. DSP(Digital Signal Processor) chip of TMS320F2808 which was supplied from TI company was used for converting into digital signals from measured EMG signals and digital filtering. We also have used PCA(Principal Component Analysis) technique and classified into four motions which have right, left, up and down direction. This data was transmitted by wireless module in order to display at PC monitor. As a result, the developed system obtains recognition success ratio above 85% for four different motions. If the recognition ratio will be increased with more experiments. this implemented system using EMG wrist direction signals could be used to control various hardware systems.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.25 no.6
• /
• pp.471-478
• /
• 2004

Electromyogram (EMC) signal generated by voluntary contraction of muscles is often used in a rehabilitation devices such as an upper limb prosthesis because of its distinct output characteristics compared to other bio-signals. This paper proposes an EMG-based human-computer interface (HCI) for the control of the above-elbow prosthesis or the wheelchair. To control such rehabilitation devices, user generates four commands by combining voluntary contraction of two different muscles such as levator scapulae muscles and flexor-extensor carpi ulnaris muscles. The muscle contraction is detected by comparing the mean absolute value of the EMG signal with a preset threshold value. However. since the time difference in muscle firing can occur when the patient tries simultaneous co-contraction of two muscles, it is difficult to determine whether the patient's intention is co-contraction. Hence, the use of the comparison method using a single threshold value is not feasible for recognizing such co-contraction motion. Here, we propose a novel method using double threshold values composed of a primary threshold and an auxiliary threshold. Using the double threshold method, the co-contraction state is easily detected, and diverse interface commands can be used for the EMG-based HCI. The experimental results with real-time EMG processing showed that the double threshold method is feasible for the EMG-based HCI to control the myoelectric prosthetic hand and the powered wheelchair.