Welcome to my personal webpage.
I'm a Mechatronics Engineer who earned my Ph.D. degree
from the Assistive Robotics Laboratory (ARL)
at Virginia Tech.
With
Dr. Alan Asbeck,
we started the hardware robotic laboratory,
where I led the Arm Haptic Feedback team throughout the R&D process
unto measuring the scientific findings.
The objective of my research is to understand the prerequisite elements for "wearable physical trainers" that can provide real-time physical guidance for learning a new motion. Using this technique, the physical training process of "see-learn-try" can be simplified a lot becoming an ultimate solution for in-home therapy. To address this,
- First, we came up with a direct-drive joint actuator that operates near the peceptual threshold range with hardware transparency.
- Second, we answered a key question for how much torque should we apply to encourage the wearer's volitional movement.
- Third, we observed what is the required amount of torque leading to high bandwidth of Human-in-the-looop system.
Though this study is still in preliminary level, this study shows potentials for designing wearable robot in the domain of very small applied torque region for motion training.
As a researcher from the small lab, I covered all the prerequisite experimental setups for the experiment, from designing and fabricating the exoskeleton to programming User Interface and data processing. The primary approach in hardware design was to "prototype to learn something".
Previously, I researched in Dynamics Systems Laboratory at NYU Tandon under the supervision of Dr. Maurizio Porfiri. My primary role was to apply Signal Processing techniques on smart materials (i.e., Piezoelectric) to characterize the material's electromechanical property and validate the physics-based models. Specifically, I ran impedance analyses on the material using potentiostat and conducted a system identification technique.