Low Cost System for Mobility Recovery and Gait Analysis Based on

Inertial Navigation and Virtual Reality Techniques

Christian Ovalle

, Sandra Meza

, Wilver Auccahuasi

, Oscar Linares

, Kitty Urbano

Emilio Rosario-Pacahuala

, Yoni Nicolas-Rojas

, Julio Garcia-Rodriguez

Tamara Pando-Ezcurra

and Zoran Herrera-Mejia

Universidad Tecnológica del Perú, Lima, Peru

Universidad ESAN, Lima, Peru

Universidad Privada del Norte, Lima, Peru

Universidad Continental, Huancayo, Peru

Universidad Científica del Sur, Lima, Peru

Universidad de San Martin de Porres, Lima, Peru

Escuela superior la Pontificia, Ayacucho, Peru

Universidad Privada Peruano Alemana, Lima, Peru

Universidad Nacional de Trujillo, Lima, Peru

kurbano@cientifica.edu.pe, epacahuala@usmp.edu.pe, yoninicolas@elp.edu.pe, julio.garcia@upl.edu.pe,

tamara.pando@upal.edu.pe, zherrera@unitru.edu.pe

Keywords: Acceleration, Virtual Reality, Gyroscope, Minecraft, March.

Abstract: Mobility in people is a critical factor for their physical and emotional development, having any impairment

that prevents their mobilization can have detrimental effects on the person, these deficiencies in most cases

are caused by diseases and accidents. Their recovery depends in most cases on physical therapies and

rehabilitation exercises in adults. In the present work a recovery mechanism is proposed through recreational

activities, the proposal consists of the use of gaming technology, based on the Minecraft game, added to

virtual reality technology, in which the patient will perform the proposed exercises, but will perceive that he

is playing, the results are related to the measurements of biomechanical variables that occur with the use of

sensors such as the gyroscope, where the registration of movement is presented graphically, through which

you can identify any of the pathologies related to the process of walking.

1 INTRODUCTION

Medicine is one of the areas where technology is

applied, in this sense we have equipment that perform

the recording of physiological variables, such as

equipment that record signals of EEG, EOG, EMG

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5559-5684

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4650-1340

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8820-4013

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7952-9518

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2009-000X

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2421-548X

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6493-6084

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1073-0969

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0301-3440

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0978-8167

and others, to highly complex equipment such as

magnetic resonators and a great variety. For this

reason, we always pay attention to the technological

development applied to the design of new devices,

based on the application of hardware and software.

586

Ovalle, C., Meza, S., Auccahuasi, W., Linares, O., Urbano, K., Rosario-Pacahuala, E., Nicolas-Rojas, Y., Garcia-Rodriguez, J., Pando-Ezcurra, T. and Herrera-Mejia, Z.

Low Cost System for Mobility Recovery and Gait Analysis Based on Inertial Navigation and Virtual Reality Techniques.

DOI: 10.5220/0011962400003612

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Automation, Information and Computing (ISAIC 2022), pages 586-591

ISBN: 978-989-758-622-4; ISSN: 2975-9463

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Reviewing the literature, we found several works

related to the application of technologies to solve

problems related to the health field, such as the case

of proposing mechanisms to send biomedical signals

in telemedicine applications, ensuring data integrity

(Rojas, 2022). Among the works related to ensuring

the exchange of information, we find works related to

being able to interact between different devices, with

the intention of ensuring interoperability between

devices (Herrera, 2021).

Works related to the use of the techniques

provided by virtual reality, we find works that

recommend the use of different mechanisms to

exploit these techniques to improve the performance

of the new solutions, as is the case of the use of the

WIFI 6 network (Auccahuasi, 2021), the use of these

techniques allows the maximum exploitation of

computational resources for the benefit of the

execution of virtual simulation techniques

(Auccahuasi, 2021).

When we apply virtual reality techniques, we find

works related to the exploitation of these techniques,

one of these areas where they are being used more

frequently is the case of education, with the

presentation of works where virtual reality techniques

are applied (Auccahuasi, 2021).

We found works related to the exploitation of

technology for the benefit of the recovery of the

mobility of the upper and lower limbs, by performing

rehabilitation exercises, using IOT technologies

(Auccahuasi, 2021). These processes are achieved

thanks to the exploitation of images and video, all

these taken to a virtual environment (Auccahuasi,

2020). The use of these technologies is

complemented by the use of various devices such as

gyroscopes and inertial navigators that help to

increase the data in order to be analyzed (Auccahuasi,

2021).

One of the techniques related to muscle recovery,

are those dedicated to train the brain to be able to

relearn how the movement of the course is and how

its extremities interact in order to perform it

(Auccahuasi, 2019). These techniques are

complemented by the use of various devices such as

those that evaluate the signal of the muscle, where the

recovery of the muscle is tested using different

techniques and technologies (Auccahuasi, 2019).

These works are complemented with the use of other

techniques, as is the case of the brain-computer

interface to evaluate the behavior of the brain when

the rehabilitation exercises are being performed

(Auccahuasi, 2019).

Our proposal is based on having a low cost system

for the recovery of mobility under gait analysis, using

inertial navigation technology and virtual reality,

based on the popular game that most children know,

as is the case of Minecraft, this game used by

designing a virtual environment, where patients as a

game performs rehabilitation exercises, such as

walking in a straight line, dodging obstacles, jumping

in others, the control of the virtual scenarios are

performed by recording the movements and the

movement by the patient based on a gyroscope,

giving the patient the feeling that he is playing in real

time, these electronic components are housed in a

support that the patient is placed on the chest,

managing to record the movement of the patient, the

most outstanding is to involve the patient who are

mostly children in performing the exercises as it is

more interesting to play than to exercise.

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

Working with children has a special task, which is to

understand what they like that attracts them and these

requirements lead us to analyze what videogame can

lead us to do rehabilitation exercises without them

being stressed in thinking they are doing their

therapies, the chosen one is the Minecraft, for its

practicality in designing virtual scenarios and the

sensation of walking that one has when navigating the

stage, we eliminate all types of visual interference if

we submit it to a virtual environment, eliminating all

kinds of distraction, this feature is achieved with the

use of virtual reality lenses, with this we have ensured

that the child is involved in the therapy exercises, we

would lack as we can give the integration to the game

as if the child was involved in the game without The

need for a jostick or keyboard, this requirement was

solved with the incorporation of a gyroscope which is

going We sent the game to the game and we achieved

that the game is mobilized with the action of walking

patient, completed the mechanisms of integration into

the game, the movement recorded by the patient is

represented in a displacement graph that tells us how

is the patient's march, then we develop each

component described.

2.1 Analysis of the March

The analysis of the gait is characterized in that the

patient can move without problems, we call normal

movement to the movement performed in a patient

without difficulty, moving without problems, taking

the foot forward one after the other, this exercise has

to perform without causing some kind of physical

exhaustion or presenting some type of muscular

Low Cost System for Mobility Recovery and Gait Analysis Based on Inertial Navigation and Virtual Reality Techniques

587

fatigue. When this displacement is done with some

extra effort, caused by an additional effort, by

presenting difficulty of accompanying the foot and in

some cases by performing an abnormal movement of

the body such as moving the hip in a non-uniform

way, each of these movements can be represent by

means of standard graphs, where the registry

determines if the patient presents some graphic

deviation which would indicate a pathology of the

march.

2.2 Recovery of Mobility

When we talk about recovery of mobility, we are

referring to the patient can perform a normal march in

cases when there is some immobilization of some

lower limb, for different reasons, by an operation or

immobilization, brings unfavorable effects on the

joints which causes The patient walks poorly, such as

dragging the foot, not bending the knee, which causes

him not to be able to move in a straight line, among

other deficiencies that can be observed at the moment

he walks.

2.3 Component of Inertial Navigation

Techniques

Among the components that make up the inertial

navigator, we have an Altimu-10 gyroscope that will

identify the movement when the patient is walking,

the gyroscope values are sent to the data acquisition

card, in our case the arduino lilypad, we chose this

card because it provides us the facility to be able to

attach to our support, having the values of the

gyroscope we use the bluetooth module model HC-60

with what we can transmit to the computer the

movement of the patient.

Figure 1: Altimi-10 gyroscope module and Bluetooth HC-

60.

Figure 2: Arduino Lilypad data acquisition module.

2.4 Component Virtual Reality

The virtual reality component is made up of the

Minecraft video game and virtual reality lenses,

which works through the use of a cell phone that

connects to the computer to view the video game.

Figure 3: Minecraft video game.

Figure 4: Virtual reality lenses.

2.5 Proposal

The proposal is characterized in being able to use the

gyroscope and its components, but we will give

emphasis to the development of the virtual scenarios,

ISAIC 2022 - International Symposium on Automation, Information and Computing

588

which is the mechanism where the patient performed

the interaction, developed four levels each with a

particular exercise, and increased the degree of

difficulty.

Figure 5: First level of exercise.

The first level is characterized by presenting an

exercise where the patient tries to walk in a straight

line following the red path without stepping on the

garden.

Figure 6: Second First level of exercise.

The second level is characterized by red obstacles

in the path, the patient has to walk on the red path

without hitting the wooden obstacles.

Figure 7: Third level of exercise.

The third level, is characterized by increasing the

complexity of the exercise, at this level the patient has

to walk in fine form, the path is presented in a narrow

way and does not have to hit the walls.

Figure 8: Fourth level of exercise.

The fourth level is the most complex, presents a

greater challenge where the patient has to jump

simulating that the floor is lava, with this exercise you

can verify that the patient can walk and jump without

problems.

The fifth level is characterized in being able to

perform the exercise of being able to choose one of

the boxes that are at the end of the room, with this

exercise we can identify that the patient controls the

direction when walking, with these exercises we can

recover the patient being able to control their steps, to

be able to jump, to be able to walk without tripping,

the exercises can be performed consecutively until the

patient regains mobility.

Figure 9: Fifth level of exercise.

3 RESULTS

The results presented are the result of an evaluation

of the system, based on three concepts, the first is the

patient's record when it is stopped, the second

corresponds to the record when the patient walks

normally and the third corresponds when the patient

Low Cost System for Mobility Recovery and Gait Analysis Based on Inertial Navigation and Virtual Reality Techniques

589

presents a difficulty when walking, these three

records can be seen in the following graphs:

Figure 10: Registration when the patient is stopped.

In the record of figure 10, it can be seen that the

value remains constant as time passes, so it can be

deduced that the patient is stopped.

Figure 11: Record when the patient walks normally.

In the record of figure 11, it can be observed that

the data form a wave that repeats in a constant way,

with which it can be deduced that the patient walks in

a normal and consecutive way, some alteration in the

shape of the wave, represents Some difficulty at the

moment you walk.

Figure 12: Record when the patient walks poorly.

In the record of figure 12, it can be observed that

the data form a wave that is not constant, presenting

a variety of waves of different width, which

corresponds to a patient who has problems when

walking through the irregularity of the signal.

Figure 13: Front and back view of the system, with the

components placed on the patient.

Figure 13 shows the virtual reality lenses placed

on the patient, as well as the gyroscope placed in the

navel of the patient, because it is the center of gravity

of the patient and is where the registration and graphic

analysis will be performed. On the back of the stand,

you can see the acquisition card as the wireless

transmission module.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Among the conclusions that we can describe, at the

time of finalizing the design and carrying out the first

field tests, we are given the degree of acceptance that

the system has on the part of the children, because

they get excited when presenting the game instead of

the exercise to be performed, with this we eliminate

the classic problems that arise in children by their

very nature of being distracted at the time of

performing the exercise. From the point of view of

design, it was possible to couple the components, in

such a way that the interaction between the

acquisition mechanism and the computer where the

videogame is installed is achieved, this wireless

connection allows the patient to feel total control of

the game. mobilize in a natural way, and technically

it is possible to have the register of the variables that

you want to analyze, in the practical case the variable

center of gravity was registered recording the

movement that occurs in the navel, so the movement

originates a continuous wave indicating the

continuity of the steps at the time of walking. A

recording and visualization different from the

characteristic wave correspond to a deficiency at the

time of walking. The system can be scaled, increasing

the number of gyros in other parts of the body that it

ISAIC 2022 - International Symposium on Automation, Information and Computing

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is necessary to analyze and be able to better describe

the pathology.

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