• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.51-58
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• 2013

As it is changing into aging society, rehabilitation, welfare and sports industry markets are being expanded fast. Especially, the field of vital signals interface to control welfare instruments like wheelchair, rehabilitation ones like an artificial arm and leg and general electronic ones is a new technology field in the future. Also, this technology can help not only the handicapped, the old and the weak and the rehabilitation patients but also the general public in various application field. The commercial bio-signal measurement instruments and interface systems are complicated, expensive and large-scaled. So, there are a lot of limitations for using in real life with ease. this thesis proposes a wireless transmission interface system that uses EMG(electromyogram) signals and a control module to manipulate hardware systems with portable size. We have designed a hardware module that receives the EMG signals occurring at the time of wrist movement and eliminated noises with filter and amplified the signals effectively. DSP(Digital Signal Processor) chip of TMS320F2808 which was supplied from TI company was used for converting into digital signals from measured EMG signals and digital filtering. We also have used PCA(Principal Component Analysis) technique and classified into four motions which have right, left, up and down direction. This data was transmitted by wireless module in order to display at PC monitor. As a result, the developed system obtains recognition success ratio above 85% for four different motions. If the recognition ratio will be increased with more experiments. this implemented system using EMG wrist direction signals could be used to control various hardware systems.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.11 no.10
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• pp.3658-3665
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• 2010

As the population of elderly people and disabled people are increased, various demands for human welfare using robot system are raised. Especially autonomous rehabilitation system using robot could reduce the human effort while maintaining the its intrinsic efficacy. This study deals with mobile gait rehabilitation system which combined with BWS (Body Weight Support) for training of elderly and handicapped people who suffer the muscle force weakness of lower extremity. BWS which is designed by kinematic analysis of body lifting characteristics and walking guide system are integrated with main control system and wheeled platform. This mobile platform is operated by UCS (User Command System) and autonomous trajectory planning algorithm. Finally, through the EMG (Electromyography) signal measuring and its analysis for subject, performance and feasibility of developed system is verified.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.16 no.10
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• pp.939-947
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• 2010

With the rising numbers of elderly and disabled people, the demand for welfare services using a robotic system and not involving human effort is likewise increasing. This study deals with a mobile-robot system combined with a BWS (Body Weight Support) system for gait rehabilitation. The BWS system is designed via the kinematic analysis of the robot's body-lifting characteristics and of the walking guide system that controls the total rehabilitation system integrated in the mobile robot. This mobile platform is operated by utilizing the AGV (Autonomous Guided Vehicle) driving algorithm. Especially, the method that integrates geometric path tracking and obstacle avoidance for a nonholonomic mobile robot is applied so that the system can be operated in an area where the elderly users are expected to be situated, such as in a public hospital or a rehabilitation center. The mobile robot follows the path by moving through the turning radius supplied by the pure-pursuit method which is one of the existing geometric path-tracking methods. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through the real experiments those are conducted for path tracking with static- and dynamic-obstacle avoidance. Finally, through the EMG (Electromyography) signal measurement of the subject, the performance of the proposed system in a real operation condition is evaluated.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.503-509
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• 2015

In this paper, we designed and tested an ankle joint mechanism for a gait rehabilitation robot. Gait rehabilitation programs are designed to improve the natural leg motion of patients who have lost their walking capabilities by accident or disease. Strengthening the muscles of the lower-limbs and stimulation of the nervous system corresponding to walking helps patients to walk again using gait assistive devices. It is an obvious requirement that the rehabilitation system's motion should be similar to and as natural as the normal gait. However, the system being used for gait rehabilitation does not pay much attention to ankle joints, which play an important role in correct walking as the motion of the ankle should reflect the movement of the center of gravity (COG) of the body. Consequently, we have designed an ankle mechanism that ensures the safety of the patient as well as efficient gait training. Also, even patients with low leg muscle strength are able to operate the ankle joint due to the direct-drive mechanism without a reducer. This safety feature prevents any possible adverse load on the human ankle. The additional degree of freedom for the roll motion achieves a gait pattern which is similar to the normal gait and with a greater degree of comfort.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.251-258
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• 2014

A wheelchair is a typical mobility aid for the physically disabled or the old and the weak, and is the most commonly used rehabilitation aid. In general, most of users of manual wheelchair have difficulty though vocational rehabilitation and independent living is possible. The reason is that long-distance movement is always accompanied with wheelchair transfer problem because a wheelchair is used as direct means of transport. Hence, the wheelchair transfer problem should be first solved in order that a wheelchair user can independently live. Therefore, this study examined and analyzed the domestic and overseas launched products and patented technologies of wheelchair transfer system for vehicle, and proposed a wheelchair transfer mechanism of a new system for vehicle. This study proposed a wheelchair transfer mechanism for vehicle in order to remove the disadvantage of wheelchair transfer system for vehicle to support the conventional wheelchair user's movement, and in order to conform with the structure of domestic welfare vehicle for the disabled. Because a difference between storage space installed in the roof of vehicle and storage space for leisure, which is generally utilized, gets to disappear by applying this proposed mechanism, popularity among users can be increased. And storage space that has become smaller like this will be capable of decreasing the disadvantage of air resistance in traveling. Besides, because of getting to conform with the structure of welfare vehicle, restrictions on the application range will disappear from small sedan to SUV. Therefore, users can have more choices.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.47-57
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• 2016

In this paper, we measured human body signals in order to verify a active harness system that we developed for gait and balance training. The experimental procedure was validated by tests with 20 healthy male subjects. They conducted motions of Activities of Daily Living(ADL)(Normal Walking, Stand-to-Sit, Sit-to-Stand, Stair Walking Up, and Stair Walking Down) according to body weight support rates (0%, 30%, 50% of subjects' body weight). The effectiveness of the active harness system is verified by using the results of foot pressure distribution. In normal walking, the decrease of fore-foot pressure, lateral soleus muscle and biceps femoris muscle were remarkable. The result of stand-to-sit results motion indicated that the rear-foot pressure and tibialis anterior muscle activities exceptionally decreased according to body weight support. The stair walking down show the marked drop of fore-foot pressure and rectus femoris muscle activities. The sit-to-stand and stair walking up activities were inadequate about the effect of body weight support because the velocity of body weight support system was slower than male's activity.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.15-22
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• 2012

The mechanical system of wearable walking assist robot needs to be optimized for adapting with human body structure and the planned control algorithm should have a secure procedure when a incongruity situation which can cause musculoskeletal injury occurs because a wearable robot is attached to a body. The understanding of walking or musculoskeletal motions characteristics must be preceeded and analyzed for developing novel wearable walking assist robot. In this study we tried to find out the capacities of powers and torques of joint actuators to design optimized performances of system and to obtain the analysis data to figure out the characteristics of joint movements during some types of walk. The major types of walk and motion are stair climbing and descending, sit-to-stand motion, and slope walking. In this study all these motions were analyzed experimentally except slope walking.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.155-162
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to determine the walking imbalance using the EMG(electromyogram). To confirm the effectiveness of the proposed encoder and acceleration, EMG sensor based gait imbalance determination system. This experiment was carried out to evaluation with a healthy adult male to 10 people. The Encoder device is attached to the hip and knee joint in order to measure the gait signal. The Accelerometer sensors are attached on the ankle. The EMG sensors are attached on the vastus lateralis and anterior tibialis. SI(Symmetry Index) was used as an index for determining the gait imbalance. To confirm if the judgment has been made correctly, the heel, regarded as the cause of unbalanced ambulation, was adjusted from 0 cm to 6 cm with intervals of 1.5 cm. In the cases of the encoder and the EMG, the difference of 0 cm and 1.5 cm is determined into normal walk but the other difference is distinguished into gait imbalance. In the case of the accelerometer, the difference of 0 cm, 1.5 cm and 3 cm is determined into normal walk but the other difference is distinguished into gait imbalance.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.203-208
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• 2015

In this study, a digital textbook was developed for effective career and vocational education of students with disabilities. The contents of developed digital textbook consisted of 'lesson 15: Sale(1)' of middle school career and vocational education of basic curriculum. It progresses six periods and each topic activities are composed of open learning, learning activity 1, learning activity 2, and organized learning in order. NamoPubTreeEditor Program was used to develop the text book in the study, digital textbooks were designed to be compatible with various devices including smartphone of android operating system, Tablet PC, the iOS system, iphone, ipad, etc. In addition, it was designed to offer a variety of learning materials such as sale multimedia materials, glossary, evaluation questions, and linked data related to sale, supported self-motivated learning. allowed students to evaluate their study for the learning of students with disabilities.

• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.19-26
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate the human body effect according to micro bubble and LED lighting in half body bathing. This study was conducted on 6 elderly male and 7 female in 70's, and the subjects were classified into half body bathing with the micro bubble group (3 male, 4 female) and without the micro bubble group (3 male, 3 female) to proceed to the experiment. Experiments were performed 4 times by changing the LED lighting colors. As a result, parasympathetic nerves were activated than sympathetic nerves (micro bubble stimulation : 21.41%) and the temperature of the body were increased by $5.93^{\circ}C$ with micro bubble and red lighting stimulation. It is considered that this work will help to utilize the half body bathing system for the micro bubble and LED lighting.