• Archives of design research
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.211-220
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• 2001

The general characteristics of the elder gait are to show a tendency that stride length and cycle decrease compared with those of adult, then walk velocity decreases. Despite differences by age in design of elder footwear, the study on characteristics of elderly gait is few. This study aims to compare pressure distributions of elderly foot with those of young students by using EMED. The ground contact time on foot was longer than that of university students in Result. Elderly males and females have 1.12 times and 1.20 times greater maximum force over the whole areas on the foot during walking than that of younger males and females, respectively. The elderly have long ground contact time at the middle foot. The guidelines which should be considered in designing shoes for the elderly are proposed. The results can be applied to design of the elder footwear on the basis of ergonomics.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.21 no.8
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• pp.1250-1258
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• 1997

This paper reports on the development of a new foot for a quadrupedal jointed-leg type walking robot. The foot has 2 toes, one at the front and the other at the rear side, for stable landing on uneven ground by point contact. The toes can move up and down independantly, guided by double-wishbone shaped parallel links which enable the lower leg to rotate with respect to a remote center on the ground surface. The motion of each toe is damped by a hydropneumatic shock absorber integrated in the foot in order to absorb the dynamic landing shock. Furthermore, the new foot can reduce the maximum hip joint drive torque by shortening the moment arm length between the hip joint and the landing force vector on the ground. Intensive experiments were carried out in this study by using a one-leg walking model to investigate the soft landing performance of the foot which could be hardly offered by conventional robot feet such as a flat plate with a gimbal type ankle joint. And it was confirmed that the hip joint torque of the leg walking on the flat surface could be reduced remarkably by using the new foot.

• Journal of Digital Contents Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.815-819
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• 2018

In this study, we investigate balance of a biped robot applying Foot Placement Estimator (FPE) in simulation. FPE method is used to determine a stable foot location for balancing the biped robot when an initial orientation of the robot body is statically unstable. In this case, the 6-DOF biped robot with point foot is modelled considering contact and friction between foot and the ground. For simulation, the mass of the robot is 1 kg assuming the center of robot mass (COM) is located at the center of the robot body. The height from the ground to the COM is 1 m. Robot balance is achieved applying stable foot locations calculated from FPE method using linear and angular velocities, and the height of the COM. The initially unstable angular postures, $5^{\circ}$ and $-5^{\circ}$, of the robot body are simulated. Simulation results confirm that the FPE method provides stable balance of the robot for all given unstable initial conditions.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.15-22
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• 2011

Purpose: This research investigated falls due to obstacles that occur among elderly people by assessing changes in the values of plantar foot force, peak force, and plantar foot pressure in elderly subjects while they were stepping over obstacles of different heights. Methods: The subjects were 20 elderly people aged 70-80 years; Pressure was measured on flat ground(0 cm), and after installing obstacles of 8 cm and 12 cm using the F-scan system, which is a resistance-type pressure sensor. A one-way analysis of variance was performed to compare pressure on each part of the foot according to various heights after collecting data using the Tekscan program. The least significant difference test was used for the post-hoc analysis, A p-value <0.05 was considered significant. Results: The force value for the toe area (parts 1, and 2) and contact pressure increased significantly with the 12 cm obstacle (p<0.05). The peak force value and the peak contact pressure for part 1 increased significantly with the 12 cm obstacle (p<0.05). Conclusion: Larger changes appeared in the functions and structure of the foot while subjects walked over obstacles of different heights compared to flatland walking. This result suggests that people have safety strategies to prevent falls, and that there is a need for a more realistic approach through practice to overcome obstacles of various heights to prevent falls.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.2899-2905
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• 2015

This paper presents is a study on the pressure distribution families low in response to ground conditions. Indoor shoes, outdoor shoes, working shoes, are four categories of shoes sports shoes, has been used in the present study, Concrete to target men in their 20s of 45people wearing the 260mm(Euro Code EU40), the experiments were carried out in the sand ground. Measurement of stress and pressure at the time of walking, Techstorm company Insole System the measured toe of the foot using, foot binding, was the metatarsal, the low pressure come from Fujoku four areas measured. Depending on the shoes and ground conditions findings, the results of this study represents the distribution of other stress and pressure, is expected to be useful in the development of a wearable shoe sand soil.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.477-483
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• 2002

This paper deals with a workspace analysis of multi-legged walking robots in velocity domain(velocity workspace analysis). Noting that when robots are holding the same object in multiple cooperating robotic arm system the kinematic structure of the system is basically the same with that of a multi-legged walking robot standing on the ground, we invented a way ot applying the technique for multiple arm system to multi-legged walking robot. An important definition of reaction velocity is made and the bounds of velocities achievable by the moving body with multi-legs is derived from the given bounds on the capabilities of actuators of each legs through Jacobian matrix for given robot configuration. After some assumption of hard-foot-condition is adopted as a contact model between feet of robot and the ground, visualization process for the velocity workspace is proposed. Also, a series of application examples will be presented including continuous walking gaits as well as several different stationary posture of legged walking robots, which validate the usefulness of the proposed technique.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.285-292
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• 2023

Small-scale ground mobile robots can access confined spaces where people or larger robots are unable. As the scale of the robot decreases, the relative size of the environment increases; therefore, maintaining the mobility of the small-scale robot is required. However, small-scale robots have limitations in using a large number of high-performance actuators, powerful computational devices, and a power source. Insects can effectively navigate various terrains in nature with their legged motion. Discrete contact with the ground and the foot enables creatures to traverse irregular surfaces. Inspired by the leg motion of the insect, researchers have developed small-scale robots and they implemented swing and lifting motions of the leg by designing leg linkages that can be adapted to small-scale robots. In this paper, we propose a leg linkage design for insect-inspired small-scale ground mobile robots. To use minimal actuation and reduce the control complexity, we designed a 1-DOF 3-dimensional leg linkage that can generate a proper leg trajectory using one continuous rotational input. We analyzed the kinematics of the proposed leg linkage to investigate the effect of link parameters on the foot trajectory.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.1146-1154
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• 2008

This paper presents a method for the acceleration analysis of multi-legged walking robots in consideration of the frictional ground contact. This method is based on both unified dynamic equation for finding the acceleration of a robot's body and constraint equation for satisfying no-slip condition. After the dynamic equation representing relationship between actuator torques and body acceleration, is derived from the force and acceleration relationship between foot and body's gravity center, the constraint equation is formulated to reconfigure the maximum torque boundaries satisfying no-slip condition from given original actuator torque boundaries. From application of the reconfigured torques to the dynamic equation, interested acceleration boundaries are obtained. The approach based on above two equations, is adapted to the changes of degree-of-freedoms of legs as well as friction of ground. And the method provides the maximum translational and rotational acceleration boundaries of body's center that are achievable in every direction without occurring slipping at the contact points or saturating all actuators. Given the torque limits in infinite normsense, the resultant accelerations are derived as a polytope. From the proposed method, we obtained achievable acceleration boundaries of 4-legged and 6-legged walking robot system successfully.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.19-26
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• 2014

This study investigated foot pressure patterns between experienced skiers and intermediate skiers during alpine skiing. Five experienced skiers and five intermediate skiers participated in this study. Foot pressure measurement system was used to measure vertical ground reaction force (vGRF) and contact area under the six plantar regions. Each participant was asked to perform basic parallel turns and carved turns on a $18^{\circ}$ groomed slope. Each right turn was divided into the initiation phase, the steering phase 1 and 2. For the initiation phase of the basic parallel turns, significantly greater contact area was found on the LRF and RRF of the intermediate skiers (p<.05) and significantly greater vGRF was found on the LRF of the intermediate skiers (p<.05). Also significantly greater vGRF and contact area were found on the LRF and RRF of the intermediate skiers at the steering phase 1 (p<.05) and on the LRF of the intermediate skiers at the steering phase 2 (p<.05). For the carved turns, significantly greater vGRF and contact area were found on the LRF and RRF of the intermediate skiers at all three phase (p<.05). On the other hand, significantly greater vGRF was found on the RFF of the experienced skiers at the steering phase 1 (p<.05). Also significantly greater vGRF and contact area were found on the RMF of the experienced skiers at the steering phase 2 (p<.05). In order to increase performance, we suggest that the intermediate skiers should be unweighted at the initiation phase and shift the body weight to the forefoot of the outer foot at the steering phase 1. Also, the outer ski should be loaded more than the both skis at the steering phase 1 and 2.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.189-195
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• 2017

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of foot landing type (forefoot vs. rearfoot landing) on kinematics, kinetics, and energy absorption of hip, knee, and ankle joints. Method: Twenty-five healthy men performed single-leg landings with two different foot landing types: forefoot and rearfoot landing. A motion-capture system equipped with eight infrared cameras and a synchronized force plate embedded in the floor was used. Three-dimensional kinematic and kinetic parameters were compared using paired two-tailed Student's t-tests at a significance level of .05. Results: On initial contact, a greater knee flexion angle was shown during rearfoot landing (p < .001), but the lower knee flexion angle was found at peak vertical ground reaction force (GRF) (p < .001). On initial contact, ankles showed plantarflexion, inversion, and external rotation during forefoot landing, while dorsiflexion, eversion, and internal rotation were shown during rearfoot landing (p < .001, all). At peak vertical GRF, the knee extension moment and ankle plantarflexion moment were lower in rearfoot landing than in forefoot landing (p = .003 and p < .001, respectively). From initial contact to peak vertical GRF, the negative work of the hip, knee, and ankle joint was significantly reduced during rearfoot landing (p < .001, all). The contribution to the total work of the ankle joint was the greatest during forefoot landing, whereas the contribution to the total work of the hip joint was the greatest during rearfoot landing. Conclusion: These results suggest that the energy absorption strategy was changed during rearfoot landing compared with forefoot landing according to lower-extremity joint kinematics and kinetics.