• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.25-29
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of two different lifting posture on the plantar foot pressure, force and COP(center of pressure) trajectory path during object lifting. Fourteen healthy adults who had no musculoskeletal disorders were instructed to lift with two postures(stoop and squat) and two object weights(empty box and 10 kg box). Plantar foot pressures, forces and COP trajectory path were recorded by the F-mat system(Tekscan, Boston, USA) during object lifting with barefoot. Plantar foot surface was defined as seven regions for pressure measurement; two toe regions, three forefoot regions, one midfoot region and one heel region. Paired t-test was used to compare the outcomes of peak pressure and maximum force with different two lifting postures and two object weights. Plantar peak pressure and maximum force under hallux was significantly greater in squat posture than stoop posture during the two different boxes lifting(p<.05). During the empty box lifting, maximum force under lessor toes was significantly less and plantar peak pressure under second metatarsal region was significantly greater in squat than stoop(p<.05). Maximum force under heel was significantly less in squat than stoop posture during 10kg box lifting(p<.05). Finally, COP trajectory path was significantly greater in squat than stoop(p<.05). These findings confirm that there are significantly change in the structure and function of the foot during the object lifting with different posture. Future studies should focus on the contribution of both structural and functional change to the development of common foot problems in adults.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.957-963
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• 2014

This paper proposes a predictive control for an efficient human following robot using Kinect sensor. Especially, this research is focused on detecting of foot-end-point and foot-vector instead of human body which can be occluded easily by the obstacles. Recognition of the foot-end-point by the Kinect sensor is reliable since the two feet images can be utilized, which increases the detection possibility of the human motion. Depth image features and a decision tree have been utilized to estimate the foot end-point precisely. A tracking point average algorithm is also adopted in this research to estimate the location of foot accurately. Using the continuous locations of foot, the human motion trajectory is estimated to guide the mobile robot along a smooth path to the human. It is verified through the experiments that detecting foot-end-point is more reliable and efficient than detecting the human body. Finally, the tracking performance of the mobile robot is demonstrated with a human motion along an 'L' shape course.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.85-93
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• 2011

The width of sidewalk is one of the important factors constructing a pleasant pedestrian environment. The procedure for sidewalk width design based on the Level of Service is suggested in Korea Highway Capacity Manual. However, this manual does not give a difference between the sidewalk on the street with the passage of the subway, therefore, the different flow characteristic of these places is not appropriately reflected. Though the pedestrian flow in the subway encounters a frequent stop and go situation as like the platoon of vehicles, the similar condition is rarely observed at the urban streets. The new measure of LOS for sidewalk is in need. The study reviewed the prominent measure of LOS and carried out the outdoor experiment to evaluate the new measure. Particularity, GPS was used to collect the pedestrian foot path trajectory for the quantitative evaluation and the results from quantitative and qualitative are compared.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.936-941
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• 2014

Walking mechanisms are very important for legged robots to ensure their stable locomotion. In this research, Klann-linkage is suggested as a walking mechanism for a water-running robot and is optimized using level average analysis. The structure of the Klann-linkage is introduced first and design variables for the Klann-linkage are identified considering the kinematic task of the walking mechanism. Next, the design problem is formulated as a path generation optimization problem. Specifically, the desired path for the foot-pad is defined and the objective function is defined as the structural error between the desired and the generated paths. A process for solving the optimization problem is suggested utilizing the sensitivity analysis of the design variables. As a result, optimized lengths of Klann-linkage are obtained and the optimum trajectory is obtained. It is found that the optimized trajectory improves the cost function by about 62% from the initial one. It is expected that the results from this research can be used as a good example for designing legged robots.