Evaluation of IMU ZigBee Sensors for Upper Limb Rehabilitation

Abstract

This research presents a novel wireless sensor technology designed to improve post-stroke rehabilitation robotics. This new system consists in a ZigBee network, based on wearable Inertial Measurement Units (IMU) easily adaptable to patient clothing or orthotic frames, allowing kinematic measurements in continuous therapy motion all over the body segments as a Body Sensor Network (BSN). The developed system was applied to upper limb movement during repetitions of a standard trial of reaching and grasping, due to its importance in post-stroke victims daily life. The presented tool was evaluated through simultaneous capture of the movement by an optical tracking system. This allowed to contrast the elbow angle variation obtained from IMU measurement with 3D photogrammetry data, recognized as the golden standard method.