• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.531-537
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• 2015

Hand function is one of the essential functions required to perform the activities of daily living, and wearable robots that assist or recover hand functions have been consistently developed. Previously, wearable robots commonly employed conventional robotic technology such as linkage which consists of rigid links and pin joints. Recently, as the interest in soft robotics has increased, many attempts to develop a wearable robot with a soft structure have been made and are in progress in order to reduce size and weight. This paper presents the concept of a soft wearable robot composed of a soft structure by comparing it with conventional wearable robots. After that, currently developed soft wearable robots and related issues are introduced.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.111-116
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• 2019

With the recent acceleration of industrial technologies and active research, wearable robot technologies have been applied to various fields. To study the utility of wearable robots, basic research on kinetic mechanisms of the human body, bio-signal analysis, and system control are essential. In this study, we investigated the basic structure of a wearable system and the operating principles of a driving mechanism. The control system and supporting structure, which comprise the driving mechanism, were designed and manufactured. Motion and load analyses were performed simultaneously for the design of the kinematic drive, and the driving mechanism was constructed by analyzing walking motion. The operating conditions of the cylinder were verified by stride via driving experiments. Further, the accuracy and responsiveness of the system were confirmed by comparison with actual motion, and the system safety was validated by applying loads.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.571-580
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• 2024

A compact triple-band porous electromagnetic bandgap structure-loaded coplanar-waveguide-fed wearable antenna is introduced for applications of wireless body area networks. The porous structure is aimed to create a stopband or bandgap in the electromagnetic spectrum and increase breathability. The holes in the bottom electromagnetic bandgap surface increase the inductance, which in turn increases the bandwidth. The final design resonates at three bands with impedance bandwidths of 264 MHz, 100 MHz, and 153 MHz and maximum gains of 2.18 dBi, 6.75 dBi, and 9.50 dBi at 2.45 GHz, 3.5 GHz, and 5.5 GHz, respectively. In addition, measurements indicate that the proposed design can be deformed up to certain curvature and withstand human tissue loading. Moreover, the specific absorption rate remains within safe levels for humans. Therefore, the proposed antenna can suitably operate in the industrial, scientific, and medical, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and WiMAX bands for potential application to wireless body area networks.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.839-847
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• 2014

A recent major development in computer technology is the advent of the wearable computer system that is based on human-centric interface technology trends and ubiquitous computing environments. Wearable computer systems can use the wireless universal serial bus (WUSB) that refers to USB technology that is merged with WiMedia PHY/MAC technical specifications. In this paper, we focus on an integrated system of the wireless USB over the wireless body area networks (WBAN) for wireless wearable computer systems supporting U-health services. To construct the WUSB over WBAN communication systems, we propose a WBAN beaconing structure to assign WUSB communication periods. In the proposed structure, WUSB uses private periods of WBAN. In our performance evaluations, we compare theoretical results and simulation results about throughputs of WUSB under various WBAN channel occupations to evaluate the effectiveness of proposed structure in WUSB over WBAN communications.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2006

In this paper, we propose a methodology for classifying types of lower limb disability and their mechanical structure, based on extensive survey of previous developments. We also propose a task-oriented design with human-friendly and energy-efficient assistive system. The result can be used for optimal design of wearable walking-assistive robot considering the type of disability and the content of task.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.307-311
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• 2022

With the development of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, numerous people worldwide connect with various electronic devices via Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs). Considering that HMIs are a new concept of dynamic interactions, wearable electronics have been highlighted owing to their lightweight, flexibility, stretchability, and attachability. In particular, wearable strain sensors have been applied to a multitude of practical applications (e.g., fitness and healthcare) by conformally attaching such devices to the human skin. However, the stretchable elastomer in a wearable sensor has an intrinsic stretching limitation; therefore, structural advances of wearable sensors are required to develop practical applications of wearable sensors. In this study, we demonstrated a 3-dimensional (3D), porous, and piezoelectric strain sensor for sensing body movements. More specifically, the device was fabricated by mixing polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and polyvinylidene fluoride nanoparticles (PVDF NPs) as the matrix and piezoelectric materials of the strain sensor. The porous structure of the strain sensor was formed by a sugar cube-based 3D template. Additionally, mixing methods of PVDF piezoelectric NPs were optimized to enhance the device sensitivity. Finally, it is verified that the developed strain sensor could be directly attached onto the finger joint to sense its movements.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.433-440
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• 2012

Various studies to improve the physical abilities of the human have been steadily continued from the past to the present. Only recently such technology has been realized, and those are expected to replace or complement human beings in large part. In this paper, the current status of developed wearable robots is investigated and studies were conducted in order to apply the types of robots in industry spot. In order to apply wearable exoskeleton robot to industry which enhances human physical capability, driving range of the robot's degrees of freedom were selected by analyzing working motion, and augmentative exoskeleton structure design process is presented by analyzing require torque and power during selected working motion. At the end of this paper, the designed mock-up is introduced to validate the feasibility of designed robot.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.15 no.7
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• pp.879-884
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• 2012

In this Paper, we propose an Energy Efficient Time Synchronization technique based on WUSB (Wireless USB) over WBAN (Wireless Body Area Networks) protocol required for Wearable Computer systems. For this purpose, the proposed Time Synchronization algorithm minimizes power consumption and estimates time information with accuracy. It is executed on the basis of WUSB over WBAN protocol at each sensor node comprising peripherals of a wearable computer system. It minimizes power consumption by exchanging time stamp packets and forming a hierarchical structure.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06b
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• pp.277-282
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• 2001

As human-friendly robot techniques improve, the concept of the wearability of robotic arms becomes important. A master arm that detects human arm motion and provides virtual forces to the operator is an embodied concept of a wearable robotic arm. In this study, we design a 7 DOF wearable robotic arm with high joint torques. An operator wearing this robotic arm can move around freely because this robotic arm was designed to have its fixed point at the shoulder part of the operator. The proposed robotic arm uses parallel mechanisms at the shoulder part and the wrist part on the model of the human muscular structure of an upper limb. To reduce the computational load in solving the forward kinematics and to prevent singularity motions of the parallel mechanism, yawing motion of the parallel mechanisms was separated using a slip ling mechanism. The total weight of the proposed robotic arm is about 4 kg. An experimental result of force tracking test for the pneumatic control system and an application example for VR robot are described to show the validity of the robot.

• Journal of Convergence Society for SMB
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.15-20
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• 2015

Recently, as smart phone technology is developing, wearable devices is also accelerating. But, the wearable device is necessary to operated for a long time with a small electric power because werable device is made compact. In this paper, we design and implement efficient lithium polymer battery model suitable to miniaturized wearable device in oder to maximize ease of use. The proposed model is characterized by a compact size of the battery by applying a thermal element and a light-weight battery. Also, proposed model gives greatly improve the life of wearable devices because it uses a method using the characteristics of the Peltier device using the temperature difference between the room temperature and body temperature of a person to generate power for charging. In particular, the proposed model can be used for the wearable device, as well as auxiliary charging of the smart phone.