• Safety and Health at Work
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• 제4권1호
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• pp.46-51
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• 2013

Objectives: Load carrying tasks are recognized as one of the primary occupational factors leading to slip and fall injuries. Nevertheless, the mechanisms associated with load carrying and walking stability remain illusive. The objective of the current study was to apply local dynamic stability measure in walking while carrying a load, and to investigate the possible adaptive gait stability changes. Methods: Current study involved 25 young adults in a biomechanics research laboratory. One tri-axial accelerometer was used to measure three-dimensional low back acceleration during continuous treadmill walking. Local dynamic stability was quantified by the maximum Lyapunov exponent (maxLE) from a nonlinear dynamics approach. Results: Long term maxLE was found to be significant higher under load condition than no-load condition in all three reference axes, indicating the declined local dynamic stability associated with load carrying. Conclusion: Current study confirmed the sensitivity of local dynamic stability measure in load carrying situation. It was concluded that load carrying tasks were associated with declined local dynamic stability, which may result in increased risk of fall accident. This finding has implications in preventing fall accidents associated with occupational load carrying.

• 로봇학회논문지
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• 제12권2호
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• pp.116-123
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• 2017

Wearable robots are receiving great attention from the public, as well as researchers, because its motivation is to improve the quality of lives of people. Above all, complete paraplegic patients due to spinal cord injury (SCI) might be the most adequate target users of the wearable robots, because they definitely need physical assistance due to the complete loss of muscular strength and sensory functions. Furthermore, the medical care of complete paraplegics by using the wearable robots have significantly reduced the mortality rate and improved the life expectancy. The requirements of the wearable robot for complete paraplegics are actuation torque, locomotion speed, wearing sensation, robust gait stability, safety, and practicality (i.e., size, volume, weight, and energy efficiency). A WalkON Suit is the wearable robot that has satisfied the requirements of the wearable robot for complete paraplegics and participated in the powered exoskeleton race of Cybathlon 2016. In this paper, configuration of the WalkON Suit, human-machine interface, gait pattern, control algorithm, and evaluation results are introduced.

• 한국운동역학회지
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• 제24권3호
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• pp.249-258
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate the different patterns of the lower limb between elderly and adult females to reduce the rate of falls. Ten old females(age: $73.1{\pm}2.69yrs$, height: $151.9{\pm}4.82cm$, mass: $57.36{\pm}5.36$) and ten adult females(age: $28\pm}4.76$ yrs, height: $160.6{\pm}6.83cm$, mass: $53.9{\pm}8.44$) were participated in this experiment. The gait motions were captured with Qualisys system and variables were calculated with Visual-3D. The following results were found. The elderly female group showed bigger inclination angle between COM and COP than the adult female group so that the dynamic stability was reduced in walking for the compensation with a bigger stride width. The elderly female group ensure for the necessary forward movement of COM in order to replace the decreased function of ankle and knee joint. If the distance between COM and COP is closer and the energy reduction of a specific joint is reduced, they could prevent the elderly female's falling rate by strengthening of muscles which were related the extension of ankle joint.

• 한국정밀공학회지
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• 제23권2호
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• pp.164-171
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• 2006

Anterior cruciate ligament(ACL) injury of the knee is common and a serious ACL injury leads to ligament reconstruction surgery. Gait analysis is used to identify the result of surgery. The purpose of this study is to numerically evaluate and classify knee condition of patients through the chaos analysis. Experiments were carried out for 13 subjects (8 healthy subjects, 5 ACL deficient patients) walking on a treadmill. Sagittal kinematic data of the right lower extremity were collected by using a 3D motion analysis system. The recorded gait patterns were digitized and then coordinated by KWON3D. The largest Lyapunov exponent from the measured knee angular displacement time series was calculated to quantify local stability. It was found that the Lyapunov exponent becomes larger as the knee condition becomes worse. This study suggested a method of the severity of injury and the level of recovery. The proposed method discerns difference between healthy subjects and patients.

• 한국정밀공학회지
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• 제26권10호
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• pp.56-64
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• 2009

This paper presents a parallel typed walking robot which can walk in omni-direction and climb from a floor to a wall. We design a six D.O.F leg mechanism composed of three legs, which form a parallel mechanism with a base and a ground to generate arbitrary poses. Optimal design is conducted to maximize the walking space and the dexterity, which are normalized by the stroke of leg. Kinematic parameters are found to maximize the weighted optimal objectives. We design a triple parallel mechanism robot by inserting Stewart platform between the upper leg mechanism and the lower leg mechanism and examine the gaits when the robot walks on the ground and climbs from a floor to a wall. The analysis of walking space and dexterity for each gait shows that the triple parallel walking robot has a large walking space with a large stability region. We explore the possibility that the robot can climb from a floor to a wall. Investigating the gaits for the six steps proves that the robot can lift the foot up to the wall by combining the orientational walking space generated by three parallel mechanisms.

• 대한물리의학회지
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• 제14권3호
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• pp.21-27
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• 2019

PURPOSE: This study examined the changes in the kinematic variables during walking on a downhill ramp according to the shoe heel height. METHODS: The subjects were 10 adult women with no history of musculoskeletal disorders who agreed to participate in the study. Data were collected using a motion analysis system (VICON) consisting of six infrared cameras. The slope was 120 cm in width, 200 cm in length, and 15 in inclination. To confirm the change in gait parameters (stride length, gait speed) and lower extremity joint angle according to the heel heights of the shoes, flat, 5 cm, and 10 cm heel shoes were prepared and walked alternately. RESULTS: As a result, both the stride length and walking speed showed significant differences according to the heel height between flat and 10 cm (p<.05). In the sagittal plane, there was no significant difference in the hip joint and knee joint, but a significant difference was observed in all events in the ankle joint on all heel heights (p<.05). In particular, the heel strike and mid stance events showed significant differences among all height conditions (p<.05). No significant difference was observed in any of the joint angle changes in the frontal plane (p>.05). CONCLUSION: As the shoe heel height increased, the instability increased and efforts to secure the stability were made, leading to a shortened stride length, walking speed, and angle of the ankle joint.

• 한국정밀공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국정밀공학회 2002년도 춘계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.446-449
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• 2002

Quadruped walking robot requires dynamic control to keep its stability in high speed walking. To keep its walking stability by control of only legs' Joint angle lowers energy efficiency. It is known that an animal or a human use the moving of the mass center of one's upper body to keep the stability. We have developed a quadruped walking robot with weight balancing oscillator that have high energy efficiency. In this study, walking tests are performed for the robot to verify the validity of the weight balancing oscillator.

• 한국정밀공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국정밀공학회 2004년도 추계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.989-992
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• 2004

In general, it is known that walking stability of a quadruped is determined by its COG(Center of Gravity). In this paper, in order to know whether our virtual quadruped robot is applicable to the real quadruped robot, we simulated our virtual model using the data from the real robot‘s walking. We were able to evaluate the stride of quadruped based on direct and inverse kinematics and compared the stride of the simulation with real robot’s it. During the simulation we calculated the COG of the virtual model and evaluated the walking stability of real model.

• 대한전기학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한전기학회 2006년 학술대회 논문집 정보 및 제어부문
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• pp.539-541
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• 2006

Biped locomotion is a popular research area in robotics due to the high adaptability of a walking robot in an unstructured environment. When attempting to automate the motion planning process for a biped walking robot, one of the main issues is assurance of dynamic stability of motion. This can be categorized into three general groups: body stability, body path stability, and gait stability. A zero moment point (ZMP), a point where the total forces and moments acting on the robot are zero, is usually employed as a basic component for dynamically stable motion. In this rarer, learning based neuro-fuzzy systems have been developed and applied to model ZMP trajectory of a biped walking robot. As a result, we can provide more improved insight into physical walking mechanisms.

• Advances in robotics research
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• 제2권2호
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• pp.151-159
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• 2018

The evolution of bipedal robots was the foundation stone for development of Humanoid robots. The highly complex and non-linear dynamic of human walking made it very difficult for researchers to simulate the gait patterns under different conditions. Simple controllers were developed initially using basic mechanics like Linear Inverted Pendulum (LIP) model and later on advanced into complex control systems with dynamic stability with the help of high accuracy feedback systems and efficient real-time optimization algorithms. This paper illustrates a number of significant mathematical models and controllers developed so far in the field of bipeds and humanoids. The key facts and ideas are extracted and categorized in order to describe it in a comprehensible structure.