University of Twente Student Theses
Real-time posture improvement for squats : designing a wearable that improves posture during a squat by providing haptic feedback.
Blanksma, J.I. (2021) Real-time posture improvement for squats : designing a wearable that improves posture during a squat by providing haptic feedback.
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| Abstract: | Many people do sports as hobby or to stay healthy; individual or in a team, outside or inside, there are many different possibilities and sport associations. One sport that is becoming increasingly more popular is working out. Many people go to a gym, have equipment at home to work out or follow a workout video on YouTube. The squat is an important exercise during many workouts, it is a rather simple and universal exercise that can be performed without any equipment. For the squat to be effective it needs to be performed with correct posture. If this is not the case muscle growth will be limited and there is an increased possibility for injuries. A good way to assure that the squat is done correctly is to have a trainer check the performance, but not everybody has a trainer available. Especially if a video is followed or people workout at home. To not replace a trainer but help those who have no trainer available a wearable is created. This wearable will track the movement of the user during the squat and check the posture. If posture is not correct during the squat it will give feedback about how to change the posture so it can be improved in the next repetition. The feedback is real-time, this means that the feedback is given during the exercise and not after a set of squats is done. The posture is measured by two IMUs, Inertia Measurement Unit, one placed on the lower back and another on the front of the knee. Vibration motors are used to give this feedback, a vibration motor is placed on the lower back and at the side of the knee. The side of the knee has a set of three vibration motors that together create a haptic pattern that indicates direction. The sensors and vibration motors are integrated into a wearable that consists of two parts; a band around the waist and a band around the knee. The band around the waist also contains the micro controller, an Arduino Nano, that filters the incoming data and contains the code to check if a squat is performed correctly. The wearable has been tested with a user test, six participants participated in qualitative research about the wearable. The participants used the wearable and answered a questionnaire before and after the test. The tests were performed to check if the set requirements were matched, find points of improvement and find possibilities for the future. The overall impression of the user-tests is that the participants saw the potential that the wearable has, but further development is needed. Especially the accuracy of measuring posture and the haptic patterns need more development. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Bachelor) |
| Faculty: | EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science |
| Programme: | Creative Technology BSc (50447) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/87608 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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