• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.152-162
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• 2024

Objective: This study was conducted to analyze the effect of wearable Electromyography-controlled functional electrical stimulation (EMG-controlled FES) System on Gait Function and cardiopulmonary metabolic efficiency during walking in older adults. Design: Cross-section study Methods: Total 22 older adult participants suitable to selection criteria of this study participated in this study. The EMG-controlled FES System, which functions as a wearable physical activity assist FES system was used. All participations performed randomly assigned two conditions (Non-FES assist [NFA], FES assist [FA]) of walking. In all conditions, spatio-temporal parameters and kinematics and kinetics parameters during walking was collected via 3D motion capture system and 6 minutes walking test (6MWT) and metabolic cost during walking and stairs climbing was collected via a portable metabolic device (COSMED K5, COSMED Srl, Roma, Italy). Results: In Spatio-temporal parameters aspects, The EMG-controlled FES system significantly improved gait functions measurements of older adults with sarcopenia at walking in comparison to the NFA condition (P<0.05). Hip, knee and ankle joint range of motion increased at walking in FA condition compared to the NFA condition (P<0.05). In the FA condition, moment and ground reaction force was changed like normal gait during walking of older adults in comparison to the NFA condition (P<0.05). The EMG-controlled FES system significantly reduced net cardiopulmonary metabolic energy cost, net energy expenditure measurement at stairs climbing (P<0.05). Conclusions: This study demonstrated that EMG-controlled FES is a potentially useful gait-assist system for improving gait function by making joint range of motion and moment properly.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2013.05a
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• pp.589-590
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• 2013

The fast development of electronic devices towards wireless, portable and multi-functionality desperately needs the self-powered and low maintenance power sources. The possibility to coupling the nanogenerator to wearable and portable electronic device facilitates the self powered device with independent and self sustained power source. Nanogenerator has ability to convert the low frequency mechanical vibration to electrical energy which is utilized to drive the electronic device [1]. The self powered power source has the ability to generate the power from environment and human activity has attracted much interest because of place and time independent. The human body motion based energy harvesting has created huge impact for future self powered electronics device applications. The power generated from the human body motion is enough to operate the future electronic devices. The energy harvesting from human body motion based on triboelectric effect has simple, cost-effective method [2, 3] and meet the required power density of devices. However, its output is still insufficient to driving electronic devices in continues manner so new technology and new device architecture required to meet required power. In the present work, we have fabricated the triboelectric nanogenerator using PDMS polymer. We have studied detail about the power output of the device with respect to different polymer thickness and varied separation distance.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.525-530
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• 2023

Stretchable piezoelectric energy harvester (S-PEHs) based on composite materials are considered one of the potential candidates for realizing wearable self-powered devices for smart clothing and electronic skin. However, low energy conversion performance and expensive stretchable electrodes are major bottlenecks hindering the development and application of S-PEHs. Here, we fabricated the S-PEH by adopting the piezoelectric composites with enhanced stress transfer properties and kirigami-patterned textile electrodes. The optimum contents of piezoelectric BaTiO₃ nanoparticles inside the carbon nanotube/ecoflex composite were selected as 30 wt% considering the trade-off between stretchability and energy harvesting performance of the device. The final S-PEH shows an output voltage and mechanical stability of ~5 V and ~3,000 cycles under repeated 150% of tensile strain, respectively. This work presents a cost-effective and scalable way to fabricate stretchable piezoelectric devices for self-powered wearable electronic systems.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.119-128
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• 2022

Recent advancement of Internet of Things (IoT) and energy harvesting technology enable realization of flexible thermoelectric energy harvester (f-TEH), with technological prowess for use in biomedical monitoring system integrated applications. To expand a flexible thermoelectric energy harvesting platform, the f-TEH must be required for optimized flexible thermoelectric materials and device structure. In response to these demands related to thermoelectric energy harvesting, many research groups have investigated various f-TEHs applied as a power source for wearable electronics. As a key member of the f-TEH, film-based f-TEHs possess significant applicability in research to realize self-powered wearable electronics, owing to their excellent flexibility, low thermal conductivity, and convenient fabrication process. Thus, based on the rapid growth of thermoelectric film technology, this review aims to overview comprehensively the f-TEH made of various inorganic/organic thermoelectric materials including developed fabrication methods, high thermoelectric performance, and wide-range applications.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2021.10a
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• pp.300-302
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• 2021

Usage of a face mask has become mandatory in many countries after the COVID-19. This paper described to develop a IoT based smart mask system for monitoring face mask. The system developed in this paper has two main units, a sensor module, and a smartphone application. The sensor module consists of four components: temperature and humidity sensor, a heart rate sensor, and a BLE chip. This components work as a unit to collect data and stream them through an I2C port over BLE to a connected mobile device. The smartphone application is an Android application developed for smart phones. It enables the Android device to communicate with the sensor to receive sensor data, process, store and display results.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.119-128
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• 2022

This study analyzes the effects of the number of angles and bends on resistance in a conductor-embroidered stitch circuit for efficient power transfer through a conductor of wearable energy harvesting to study changes in power lost through connection with actual solar panels. In this study, the angle of the conductive stitch circuit was designed in units of 30˚, from 30˚ to 180˚, and the resistance was measured using an analog Discovery 2 device. The measured resistance value was analyzed, and in the section of the angle where the resistance value rapidly changes, it was measured again and analyzed in units of 5˚. Following this, from the results of the analysis, the angle at which the tension was applied to the stitch converges was analyzed, and the resistance was measured again by varying the number of bends of the stitch at the given angle. The resistance decreases as the angle of the stitch decreases and the number of bends increases, and the conductor embroidery stitch can reduce the loss of power by 1.61 times relative to general embroidery. These results suggest that the stitching of embroidery has a significant effect on the power transfer in the transmission through the conductors of wearable energy harvesting. These results indicate the need for a follow-up study to develop a conductor circuit design technology that compares and analyzes various types of stitches, such as curved stitches, and the number of conductors, so that wearable energy harvesting can be more efficiently produced and stored.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.53-60
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• 2023

Mechanical energy can be harvested by triboelectric nanogenerators (TENG) from biological and environmental systems. In wearable electronics, TENG has a lot of significance as biomechanical energy can be harvested from the motion of humans, which is applied in vibrational sensors. Wearable TENG is prone to moisture and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is an excellent hydrophobic material used in these applications. The presence of highly electronegative fluorine atoms leads to very low surface energy. At the same time, the performance of the device increases due to the efficient capture of the electrons on the microporous membrane surface. This similar behavior occurs with polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) due to the presence of fluoride atoms, which is relatively less as compared to PTFE.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2016.11a
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• pp.183.1-183.1
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• 2016

Due to the latest research trend toward wearable energy devices, transparent and stretchable supercapacitors which can sustain their performance even under physical deformation have steadily attracted huge attention. Despite the Ag NW is the most promising candidate for fabrication of transparent and stretchable electronics, the electrochemical instability interrupts its application to development of the energy device. Here, we introduce a transparent and highly stretchable supercapacitor made by Au-Ag core shell NW network percolation electrode. The Au-Ag core shell NW synthesized by a simple solution process not only shows excellent electrical conductivity but also greatly enhanced chemical and electrochemical stability compare to pristine Ag NW. These outstanding properties of the Au-Ag core shell NW are attributed both to the core Ag NW and the Au protecting sheath layer. The proposed Au-Ag core shell NW based supercapacitor exhibits optical transmittance with outstanding mechanical stability withstanding 60% strain without any decrease of the performance. The supercapacitors connected in series are charged and discharged stable in 30% strain turning on a red LED. These notable results demonstrate the potential of the Au-Ag core shell NW as a strong candidate for development of wearable energy devices.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.9-19
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• 2017

Useful continuous sensing applications are increasingly emerging as a new class of mobile applications. Meanwhile, open, multi-use sensor devices are newly adopted beyond smartphones, and provide huge opportunities to expand potential application categories. In this upcoming environment, uncoordinated use of sensor devices would cause severe imbalance in power consumption of devices, and thus result in early shutdown of some sensing applications depending on power-hungry devices. In this paper, we propose EnergyCordy, a novel inter-device energy use coordination system; with a system-wide holistic view, it coordinates the energy use of concurrent sensing applications over multiple sensor devices. As its key approach, we propose a relaxed sensor association; it decouples the energy use of an application from specific sensor devices leveraging multiple context inference alternatives, allowing flexible energy coordination at runtime. We demonstrated the effectiveness of EnergyCordy by developing multiple example applications over custom-designed wearable senor devices. We show that EnergyCordy effectively coordinates the power usage of concurrent sensing applications over multiple devices and prevent undesired early shutdown of applications.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.21 no.8
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• pp.982-990
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• 2018

In recent years, many wearable devices and mobile apps related to life care have been developed, and a service for measuring the movement during walking and showing the amount of exercise has been provided. However, they do not measure walking in detail, so there may be errors in the total calorie consumption. If the user's behavior is measured by a multi-axis sensor and learned by a machine learning algorithm to recognize the kind of behavior, the detailed operation of walking can be autonomously distinguished and the total calorie consumption can be calculated more than the conventional method. In order to verify this, we measured activities and created a model using a machine learning algorithm. As a result of the comparison experiment, it was confirmed that the average accuracy was 12.5% or more higher than that of the conventional method. Also, in the measurement of the momentum, the calorie consumption accuracy is more than 49.53% than that of the conventional method. If the activity recognition is performed using the wearable device and the machine learning algorithm, the accuracy can be improved and the energy consumption calculation accuracy can be improved.