• Journal of Korean Biological Nursing Science
• /
• v.23 no.1
• /
• pp.72-82
• /
• 2021

Purpose: This study used a mixed methods research design in an attempt to verify the effects of robot-assisted rehabilitation on the gait ability of stroke patients with hemiplegia, and thereby further understand the benefits and challenges of stroke patients' experiences relying on robot-assisted rehabilitation. Methods: An exploratory sequential mixed methods study design was used in order to combine both quantitative and qualitative data. For the quantitative data collection, a total of 30 stroke patients with hemiplegia were recruited from one rehabilitation hospital. Qualitative data were collected through individual interviews using semi-structured questionnaires for a group of 15 patients who were currently undergoing robot-assisted rehabilitation. The data were analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Results: As a result of the quantitative analysis, there were significant differences between the two groups in terms of daily living activity patterns, total number of steps, and average walking speed. As a result of the qualitative analysis, the four main themes derived consisted of, 'curiosity about the usage of robot-assisted rehabilitation,' 'pleasure experienced while using the robots,' 'insufficient information about robots,' and 'a lack of education about robot-assisted rehabilitation.' Conclusions: Robot-assisted rehabilitation had a significant effect on the walking ability of stroke patients with hemiplegia. Additionally, stroke patients with hemiplegia experienced difficulty during the course of their robot-assisted rehabilitation, due to a lack of sufficient information on correct usage techniques. These quantitative and qualitative findings could provide the basic foundation for the development of an educational program on robot-assisted rehabilitation.

• Journal of Cadastre & Land InformatiX
• /
• v.53 no.1
• /
• pp.83-105
• /
• 2023

A robot-friendly building certification system was established in 2022 to accommodate the growing number of service robots introduced into buildings. However, this system primarily targeted office buildings, with limitations in applying other functional architectures. To address this problem, we developed a certification model of a robot-friendly environment to extend the existing system to apartment complexes. Using focus group interviews and the analytic hierarchy process, we established 28 evaluating items categorized as (a) architecture and facility design, (b) networks and systems, (c) building operations management, and (d) support for robot activity and other services. These indicators were weighted based on their relative importance within and between categories, resulting in scores ranging from 1 to 18 points and a total of 176 points. According to evaluations with the 28 items, each apartment complex could be graded as "best," "excellent," or "general" based on its total achieved scores. This study is significant, as we present the world's first certification model of a robot-friendly environment for apartment complexes that considers human-robot interactions

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.13 no.8
• /
• pp.109-117
• /
• 2013

This research is for selection of animal and establishment of guideline which for animal robot design for the purpose of emotionally disturbed children's psychotherapy. In the case of emotionally disturbed children because of poor expression about themselves's emotional condition, there are many restriction in the existing cure and educational method. Using research method of animal shape robot which is starting to make attempt since the late 1990s is effective to learning disturbed children. For the development of animal robot for psychotherapy of emotionally disturbed children first of all which animal is selected is very important. Therefore at the early stage of research preference surveyed to children including emotionally disturbed children and decide an object of animal robot. And what kind of shape is very preferred is also preference surveyed. Through focusing group interview about shape, color, facial expression, sound, and move which have an influence on outward shape design of robot, present the guideline which is needed to animal robot design for emotionally disturbed children.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
• /
• v.33 no.5
• /
• pp.407-422
• /
• 2014

Objective: The purpose of the study is to develop quantitative usability evaluation criteria for senior-friendly autonomous transportation robot. Background: The Republic of Korea has become the most rapidly aging society, and is anticipated to enter the post-aged society in 2026. To raise the quality of life of a senior with limited mobility and to reduce the burden of caregivers, many high-tech assistive products with information technologies are developed nowadays. The senior-friendly autonomous transportation robot is one person robot vehicle to move a senior to the destination for hospitals, nursing homes or silver town complex. With built-in navigation system and environmental monitoring censors, it automatically seeks the path to the destination and avoids collision to obstacles and pedestrians on the way. Due to the early stage of the product, few usability studies in this field have been done, mostly on general service robots to assist seniors, power wheelchairs and delivery robots. ISO and KS standards for the service robots are focused on safety. Method: Based on the reference usability index, the early draft of the usability evaluation questionnaires was developed. After small group tests and interviews, the experts modified the initial draft to the Usability Evaluation Criteria for Senior-Friendly Autonomous Transportation Robot (UEC-SFATR). Result: UEC-SFATR consisted of 4 subscales - Safety, Controllability, Efficiency and Satisfaction. All of the 4 subscales of UEC-SFATR were passed the reliability criteria by 4 groups of seniors, divided by gender and familiarity of smart-devices. Conclusion: UEC-SFATR covers wider area of user experiences of the SFATR and is a good measurement tool to help both the users and developers of the robot. Application: This study provides guide to the future product development and product competitiveness evaluation by quantifying user experiences for the SFATR.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
• /
• v.16 no.8
• /
• pp.67-76
• /
• 2011

This study is to analyze the effects on using robots in elementary regular classes. The robots and PC-linked applications were developed considering the school subjects' academic goals and the learners' responses were carefully examined while applying the robots in the class. The image profile after the robot application shows positive feedbacks in most of the contents and some significant differences were found in contents such as 'theoretical-practical', 'uncooperative-cooperative'(p<.05). Moreover, the analysis on the learners' image drawings shows that more robot images are formed related to the concrete learning environment. The learners have answered in an interview to evaluate their understanding of Robot based instruction that both direct and indirect robot experience induce positive participations and provide authentic learning experience. During the robot based instruction, the learners cooperate with their group members and recognize the cooperation as a positive activity. It proves that the robot based instruction can lead to a possibility of new education paradigm.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
• /
• v.19 no.5
• /
• pp.435-441
• /
• 2013

A swarm robot system consists of with multiple mobile robots, each of which is called an agent. Each agent interacts with others and cooperates for a given task and a given environment. For the swarm robotic system, the loss of the entire work capability by malfunction or damage to a single robot is relatively small and replacement and repair of the robot is less costly. So, it is suitable to perform more complex tasks. The essential component for a swarm robotic system is an inter-robot collaboration strategy for teamwork. Recently, the swarm intelligence theory is applied to robotic system domain as a new framework of collective robotic system design. In this paper, FA (Firefly Algorithm) which is based on firefly's reaction to the lights of other fireflies and their social behavior is employed to optimize the group behavior of multiple robots. The main application of the firefly algorithm is performed on path planning of swarm mobile robots and its effectiveness is verified by simulations under various conditions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 2005.06a
• /
• pp.888-891
• /
• 2005

In this paper, the prototype of a walking guide robot with tactile display is introduced, and the psychophysical experiment of the tactile recognition for a tactile display is carried out and analyzed. The objective of this research is the development of a walking guide robot for the blind to walk safely. A walking guide robot consists of a guide vehicle and a tactile display device. A guide vehicle, located in the front of the walking blind, detects the obstacle using ultrasonic sensors and offers the information of position and walking direction acquired from GPS module to the walking blind by voice. The tactile display device, located in the handle which is connected with the guide vehicle by cane, offers the processed obstacle information such as position, size, moving, shape of obstacle and safe path, etc. The psychophysical experiments for the threshold of perception and recognition ability of tactile stimulation are carried out by the estimation of the subject group. As a result the appropriate tactile stimulus intensity and frequency to recognize tactile stimulation effectively are discussed and derived.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
• /
• 2004.07d
• /
• pp.2397-2399
• /
• 2004

This paper deals with the messages scheduling of a CAN (Controller Area Network), based on the distributed control scheme to integrate actuators and sensors in a humanoid robot. In order to supply the distributed processing for a humanoid robot, each control unit should have the efficient control method, fast calculation and valid data exchange. The preliminary study has concluded that the performance of CAN is better and easier to implement than other network such as FIP (Factory Instrumentation Protocol), VAN (Vehicle Area Network), etc. Since humanoid robot has to treat the significant control signals from many actuators and sensors, the communication time limitation could be critical according to the transmission speed and data length of CAN specification. In this paper, the CAN message scheduling in humanoid robot was suggested under the presence of Jitter in the message group, the existence of high load of messages over the network and the presence of transmission errors. In addition, the response time under the worst case is compared with the simulation by using the simulation algorithm. As a result, the suggested messages scheduling can guarantee our CAN limitation, and utilized to generate the walking patterns for the humanoid.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
• /
• v.6 no.3
• /
• pp.237-246
• /
• 2011

Robots have been used in many fields due to its performance improvement and variety of its functionality, to the extent which robots can replace human tasks. Individual feature and better performance of robots are expected and required to be created. As their performances and functions have increased, systems have gotten more complicated. Multi mobile robots can perform complex tasks with simple robot system and algorithm. But multi mobile robots face much more complex driving problem than singular driving. To solve the problem, in this study, driving algorithm based on the energy method is applied to the individual robot in a group. This makes a cluster be in a formation automatically and suggests a cluster the automatic driving method so that they stably arrive at the target. The energy method mentioned above is applying attractive force and repulsive force to a special target, other robots or obstacles. This creates the potential energy, and the robot is controlled to drive in the direction of decreasing energy, which basically satisfies lyapunov function. Through this method, a cluster robot is able to create a formation and stably arrives at its target.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
• /
• v.35 no.1
• /
• pp.8-12
• /
• 2023

Purpose: Recently, many studies on robotic rehabilitation have been conducted, but such studies on patients with ankle sprains are lacking. This study aimed to investigate the effects of robot-assisted rehabilitation on the range of motion of the ankle and balance in patients with ankle sprain. METHODS: This study used the A-B-A' design and was conducted for a total of fifteen days. The subjects performed general physical therapy for five days each, during the baseline A and A' periods. In period B, robot rehabilitation was performed for five days, along with general physical therapy. The subjects were evaluated based on weight-bearing lunge test (WBLT), single leg stance (SLS), and functional reach test (FRT). RESULTS: The WBLT, STS, and FRT showed significant improvement in periods B and A' compared to period A, but there was no significant improvement in period A' compared to period B. Conclusion: This study confirmed that robot-assisted rehabilitation was an effective intervention for improving the function of patients with ankle sprain. In the future, a study with a control group comparison should be performed.