• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.11 no.11
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• pp.936-942
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• 2005

Recently the exoskeletal power assistive equipment which is a kind of wearable robot has been widely developed to help the human body motion. For the elderly people and patients, however, some limits exist due to the weight and volume of the equipments. As a feasible solution, a tendon-driven exoskeletal power assistive device fur the lower body, and caster walker are proposed in this research. Since the caster walker carries the heavy items, the weight and volume of the wearable exoskeleton are minimized. The key control is used to generate the joint torque required to assist motions such as sitting, standing and walking. Experiments were performed for several motions and the EMG sensors were used to measure the magnitude of assistance. When the motion of sitting down and standing up was compared with and without wearing the proposed device, the $25\%$ assistance was acquired.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.505-512
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• 2022

In this study, a 3D printed assistive device was applied to X-ray examinations to diagnose human diseases. Based on the results of evaluating the device, statistical and regression analyses were conducted to evaluate its clinical utility and purchase intention, respectively. In the experiment, 90 radiologists performed X-ray examinations on patients who agreed with the use of the assistive device in oblique view X-rays of the lumbar spine, and then statistical analyses were undertaken with a traditional aid and factor analysis. The non-standardized coefficient values of the multiple regression analysis performed by setting the purchase intention of the 3D printed device as the dependent variable and the 3D printed device and traditional aid calculated by factor analysis as independent variables were 0.893 (p<0.001) and 0.269 (p<0.001), indicating statistically significant results. The results show that the 3D printed assistive device proposed in this study has higher clinical utility than traditional aids used in oblique view X-rays of the lumbar spine.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.99-105
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to compare AAC service delivery system between Korea and U.S.A for appling effective 'AAC service delivery system. This delivery system complement the missing part in system of the current method and narrow blind area for system. The result of this research, increase suppling item of assistive communication device in public benefit and provide delivery system through construct infrastructure by assistive technology center, special education support center, developmental disorder support center, speech therapy center in each local area. Furthermore, assistive technology-related institute and academy develope training programs for human resources to delivery AAC service.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.97-104
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• 2015

A fuzzy controller and a 2-dimensional wire-driven heavy material lifting system helping human operator are proposed in this paper. The 2-dimensional wire-driven heavy material lifting system is a kind of human-assistive systems in which a human is involved in the control loop. Most of the existing human-assistive control systems cannot consider human operator's characteristic. To consider human operator's characteristic, human's operating motion and requirement of reducing operator's force to lift a heavy material are considered in the design process of the proposed fuzzy controller. The performance of the proposed system is verified by experiments.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.319-325
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• 2012

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop the assistive device for accelerator and brake pedals using bio-signals from the prefrontal lobe in the driving simulator and evaluate its performance. Background: There is lack of assistive devices for the driving in peoples with disabilities in Korea. However, if bio-signals and/or brain waves are used at driving a car, the people with serious physical limitations can improve their community mobility. Method: 15 subjects with driver's license participated in this study for experiment of driving performance evaluation in the simulator. Each subject drove the simulator the same course 10 times in three separated groups which use different interface controllers to accelerate and brake: (1) conventional pedal group, (2) joystick group and (3) bio-signal group(horizontal quick glance of the eyes and clench teeth). All experiments were recorded and the driving performances were evaluated by three inspectors. Results: Average score of bio-signal group for the driving in the simulator was increased 3% compared with the pedal group and was increased 9% compared with the joystick group(p<0.01). The subjects using bio-signals was decreased 44% in number of deduction compared with others because the device had the built-in modified cruise control. Conclusion: The assistive device for accelerator and brake pedals using bio-signals showed significantly better performance than using general pedal and a joystick interface(p<0.01). Application: This study can be used to design adaptive vehicle for driving in people with disabilities.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.65-70
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• 2011

A communication is one of the most important factors for the human beings. Therefore, people who have some problems in communication need an Augmentative & Alternative Communication (AAC) intervention to live in the human societies and several AAC systems have been developed to help the people. Lately, smart-phone is widely used to people as a communication device which can connect between persons. It can provide many useful methods and Apps to the user. If the AAC system is unified to the smart-phone, it is very effective device to the people with disabled because they can reduce the excessive expense and easily accommodate themselves to the AAC system. In this paper, an AAC program which is installed in the smart-phone or tablet PC is introduced. It has basic AAC solutions and can send SMS message to other people. We expect that the developed device can help the communication of the people with disabled and solve the social isolation of the disabled person.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.87-93
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• 2011

This paper proposes a method for extraction of the gaze point on display using EOG(Electrooculography) signal. Based on the linear property of EOG signal, the proposed method corrects scaling difference, rotation difference and origin difference between coordinate of using EOG signal and coordinate on display, without adjustment using the head movement. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated by measuring the difference between extracted gaze point and displayed circle point on the monitor with 1680*1050 resolution. Experimental results show that the average distance errors at the gaze points are 3%(56pixel) on x-axis, 4%(47pixel) on y-axis, respectively. This method can be used to human computer interface of pointing device for general paralysis patients or HCI for VR game application.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.436-443
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• 2013

This paper presents design methods of a fuzzy controller and an operator model for a wire-driven heavy material lifting system helping human workers. The wire-driven heavy material lifting system is a kind of human-assistive systems in which a human is involved in the control loop. Thus, human's control characteristics and requirement of reducing worker's force to lift a heavy material are considered in the design process of the proposed fuzzy controller. An automatic weight measurement algorithm during the early stage of lifting is also introduced. Finally, the effectiveness and performance of the proposed system are proved by experiments.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.1 no.6
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• pp.642-648
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• 2017

Involuntary hand tremor has been a serious challenge in micromanipulation tasks and thus draws a significant amount of attention from related fields. To minimize the effect of the hand tremor, a variety of mechanically assistive solutions have been proposed. However, approaches increasing human awareness of their own hand tremor have not been extensively studied. In this paper, a head mount display based virtual reality (VR) system to increase human self-awareness of hand tremor is proposed. It shows a user a virtual image of a handheld device with emphasized hand tremor information. Provided with this emphasized tremor information, we hypothesize that subjects will control their hand tremor more effectively. Two methods of emphasizing hand tremor information are demonstrated: (1) direct amplification of tremor and (2) magnification of virtual object, in comparison to the controlled condition without emphasized tremor information. A human-subject study with twelve trials was conducted, with four healthy participants who performed a task of holding a handheld gripper device in a specific direction. The results showed that the proposed methods achieved a reduced level of hand tremor compared with the control condition.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.21-25
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• 2009

Generally, fully implantable middle ear hearing device (F-IMEHD) is implanted under the skin nearby human temporal bone with all components including implantable microphone and vibration transducer. The microphone and transducer have different characteristic before and after implant. Fitting process is performed for this characteristic change of them and proper performance of hearing aids for each patient. Conventional hearing aids and partially implantable hearing aids, they have wired connector for fitting process. However in case of F-IMEHD, it is difficult this wired connection, because all components of F-IMEHD is implanted. In this paper, fitting software that can be apply wireless fitting hardware for F-IMEHD has been designed and implemented. It can find out proper fitting parameter reflecting characteristics of the microphone and transducer for patients who has difficulty in hearing.