FEEDBACK GUIDED SELF TRAINING BALANCE EQUIPMENT FOR PHYSICAL THERAPY AND ELITE ATHLETE USE

Balance boards are useful tools for a wide range of purposes. An example of a balance board is a wobble board, a circular plate mounted atop a hemisphere. Some wobble boards have variable difficulty, making them suitable for any type of physical conditioning - from elite athletic training to rehabilitation for elderly populations. Wobble boards are strictly mechanical devices, used only to obtain an assumed state of balance by the consumer. However, our goal is to design and validate a functioning interactive wobble board using an inertial measurement unit (IMU). The design features an IMU and Bluetooth communication to continuously stream the position, velocity, and acceleration of the user to a smart device (phone or tablet). An interactive game-like training exercise app will both simulate and record the user's balance and coordination. The app will guide the user to follow a specific pattern, and their simulated movements on the board will be compared to the expected movements. Both the pattern difficulty and speed may be assigned by clinicians or trainers depending on training type. This wobble board prototype will help to strengthen muscles and joints to both heal and prevent injury, as well as enhance performance. Methodology to transform frameworks, setting up different regimens and practices, a set of experiments and benchmarking plots are shared at the end of the paper.