• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.20 no.11
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• pp.74-79
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• 2021

Generally, multi-legged walking robots have excellent mobility in rough and uneven terrain, and they are deployed for the safety of rescuers in various disaster environments. However, as each leg is driven by a number of actuators, it leads to a complicated structure and high power consumption; therefore, it is difficult to put them into practical use. In this article, a new concept is proposed of a walking robot whose legs are driven by a complex linkage structure to overcome the deficiencies of conventional multi-legged walking robots. A double crank-rocker mechanism is proposed, making it possible for one DC motor to actuate the left and right movements of two neighboring thighs of the multi-legged walking robot. Each leg can also move up and down through an improved cam structure. Finally, each mechanism is connected by spur and bevel gears, so that only two DC motors can drive all legs of the walking robot. The feasibility of the designed complex linkage mechanism was verified using the UG NX program. It was confirmed through actual production that the proposed multi-legged walking robot performs the desired motion.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.167-172
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate walking standard time and joint powers of the lower extremities on the changes of illuminations in the elderly women. Ten older women ($70.90{\pm}3.28$ years, $154.70{\pm}3.47$ cm, $53.80{\pm}5.39$ kg) with normal vision and no gait disabilities participated in this study. All the experiments were performed on a level walkway from low to high lighting (six conditions). A 3-dimensional motion capturing system, force-plate, and EMG were used to acquire and analyze walking motion, force, and muscle activity data; the sampling frequency was 100 Hz, 1000 Hz and 1000 Hz respectively. To test the differences on walking standard time and joint powers of the lower extremities between the six lighting conditions, one-way repeated ANOVAs were evaluated. The following results were drawn: First, mean standard time was about 1.3 sec/stride, and velocities were smaller with lighting increasing except 100 Lx. Second, the joint power patterns of ankle and knee were not consistent, but only hip joint power was a greatest in 6 Lx and a smallest in 400 Lx. Third, standard times(100 Lx<300 Lx, 400 Lx) were statistically significant, and hip joint max powers (100 Lx>others) were also statistically significant. But ankle and knee joint max power were not statistically significant. These results showed that standard times from low to high lighting were not consistent, and hip joint of 100 Lx has a greatest rotational torque. We suggested that gait strategies of them as to changing illuminations were not consistent and findings may represent a lack of adaptability in the elderly women.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.59 no.6
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• pp.1150-1158
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• 2010

In this paper, a new reliable portable activity monitoring device implemented with the buddhist-style bowing activity and walking step detection algorithm, is presented. In order to monitor the bowing and walking activities, miniaturized 3-axis accelerometer sensor with the sensitivity of 800 mV/g was used. After initial signal conditioning, vector magnitude of accelerometer signals was calculated. Syntactic peak detection method was used in order to feature points. All signal processing algorithms were implemented in ultra-low power microcontroller MSP430 with double precision floating point arithmetic. For evaluation, 19 young man($24.22\pm5.22$ yrs) and woman($22.28\pm2.72$ yrs) were involved. The accuracy of the proposed algorithms were 98.91 %($\pm0.011$) for walking step detection and 98.25 %($\pm0.023$) for buddhist-style bowing activity. Comparing to the commercialized pedometer accuracy, 87.1 %($\pm0.058$), the proposed walking step detection algorithms show more reliable accuracy.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.323-329
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• 2020

This paper presents a control algorithm for a wearable walking aid robot for subjects with paraplegia after stroke. After a stroke, a slow, asymmetrical and unstable gait pattern is observed in a number of patients. In many cases, one leg can move in a relatively normal pattern, while the other leg is dysfunctional due to paralysis. We have adopted the so-called assist-as-needed control that encourages the patient to walk as much as possible while the robot assists as necessary to create the gait motion of the paralyzed leg. A virtual wall was implemented for the assist-as-needed control. A position based admittance controller was applied in the swing phase to follow human intentions for both the normal and paralyzed legs. A position controller was applied in the stance phase for both legs. A power controller was applied to obtain stable performance in that the output power of the system was delimited during the sample interval. In order to verify the proposed control algorithm, we performed a simulation with 1-DOF leg models. The preliminary results have shown that the control algorithm can follow human intentions during the swing phase by providing as much assistance as needed. In addition, the virtual wall effectively guided the paralyzed leg with stable force display.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.77-83
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• 2005

This paper deals with determination of motions of a humanoid robot using genetic algorithm. A humanoid robot has some problems of the structural instability basically. So, we have to consider the stable walking gait in gait planning. Besides, it is important to make the smoothly optimal gait for saving the electric power. A mobile robot has a battery to move autonomously. But a humanoid robot needs more electric power in order to drive many joints. So, if movements of walking joints don't maintain optimally, it is difficult for a robot to have working time for a long time. Also, if a gait trajectory doesn't have optimal state, the expected life span of joints tends to be decreased. To solve these problems, the genetic algorithm is employed to guarantee the optimal gait trajectory. The fitness functions in a genetic algorithm are introduced to find out optimal trajectory, which enables the robot to have the less reduced jerk of joints and get smooth movement. With these all process accomplished by a PC-based program, the optimal solution could be obtained from the simulation. In addition, we discuss the design consideration for the joint motion and distributed computation of the humanoid, ISHURO, and suggest its result such as the structure of the network and a disturbance observer.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.1235-1241
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• 2012

In this paper, each driving motor for leg joints on a robot is controlled by estimating the direction of the legs measuring each joint angle and attitude angle of robot. We used quadruped working robot named TITAN-VIII in order to carry out this experimental study. 4 load cells are installed under the bottom of 4 legs to measure the pressed force on each leg while it's walking. The walking experiments of the robot were performed in 8 different conditions combined with duty factor, the length of a stride, the trajectory height of the foot and walking period of robot. The validity of attitude control for quadruped walking robot is evaluated by comparing the pressed force on a leg and the power consumption of joint driving motor. As a result, it was confirmed that the slip-condition of which the foot leave the ground late at the beginning of new period of the robot during walking process, which means the attitude control of the robot during walking process wasn't perfect only by measuring joint and attitude angle for estimating the direction of the foot.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.71-79
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• 2008

Walking shoes for walking and jogging have been used to enjoy lots of leisure time. Functional shoes such as walking shoes have special functions to improve body motility by changing of shoe shapes. The walking shoes could improve the motility by structural transformation of outsole as increase degrees of heel and toe. The study on insoles has not been conducted enough on the contrary of the study of outsole. The purpose of this study is to perform ergonomics analysis whether the Arch Supported insoles have an improving effect of muscle activities or not. Experiments were performed with 6 subjects who are health and haven't experienced any diseases past. EMG(Electromyography) and Foot Pressures were measured repeatedly for 5 seconds at 0 hour, after 1 hour and after 2 hours of walking. Insoles used for experiment are normal insole, insole inserted Arch Support and pad. The electrodes for EMG measurement were set on waist (erector spinae), and thigh (vastus lateralis), calf (gastrocnemius). Evaluations of EMG were analyzed by shift of MF (Median Frequency) and MPF (Mean Power Frequency). Foot Pressure was analyzed by mean pressure of feet and change of walking time. As results, Arch Support insole had larger frequency shift value than that of normal insole. Frequency shift between Arch Support insoles and normal insole showed significant difference on 95% confidence interval. And insole 1 has the highest value of frequency shift. For results of foot pressure, Arch Support insoles show continuous decreasing tendency when comparing with normal insoles by changing of times. Also, insole 1 has the highest decreasing value of foot pressure. Therefore, this study presented that the Arch Support insole can promote muscle activities and improves comfort for a prolonged walking.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2011.06a
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• pp.1431-1432
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• 2011

• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.1-7
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• 2018

Humanoid robots have fascinated many researchers since they appeared decades ago. For the requirement of both accurate tracking control and the safety of physical human-robot interaction, torque control is basically desirable for humanoid robots. Humanoid robots are highly nonlinear, coupled, complex systems, accordingly the calculation of robot model is difficult and even impossible if precise model of the humanoid robots are unknown. Therefore, it is difficult to control using traditional model-based techniques. To realize model-free torque control, time-delay control (TDC) for humanoid robot was proposed with time-delay estimation technique. Using optimal walking trajectory obtained by particle swarm optimization, TDC with proposed scheme is implemented on whole body of a humanoid, not on biped legs even though it is performed by a virtual humanoid robot. The simulation results show the validity of the proposed TDC for humanoid robots.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.309-315
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• 2015

This paper presents a lower-limb exoskeleton testbed and its control method. An exoskeleton is a wearable robotic system that can enhance wearer's muscle power or assist human's movements. Among a variety of its applications, especially for military purpose, a wearable robot can be very useful for carrying heavy loads during locomotion by augmenting soldiers' mobility and endurance. The locomotion test on a treadmill was performed up to maximum 4km/h walking speed wearing the lower-limb exoskeleton testbed with a 45kg backpack load.