Medtronic, plc – Mobile App Development for a Custom Motion Capture System

Overview

Quantifying human body motion outside the laboratory, in a real-world ambulatory environment is important for various research applications. There are some commercial systems capable of collecting such data, however, are typically designed for specific applications, and no designed for use with mobile devices. Small wireless Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) that can connect to mobile devices exist, and can record accelerations and rotations. However, multiple sensors need be to used and synced to collect appropriate motion data.

Objectives

– Mobile application will allow user to enter in their information including name or subject ID.

– Mobile application will connect to multiple sensors (minimum of 3).

– Mobile application will allow a calibration data collection step.

– Mobile application will display the calibrated signals and record the data.

– Mobile application will notify user when any sensor disconnects or otherwise stops transmitting data.

– Ultimately to create a user-friendly application for users to utilize.

Approach

– Design wireframes for the front-end design of the mobile application and to understand the user flow of the application.

– Utilize the open-source Xsense SDK to communicate between Xsense sensors and mobile app.

– Integration of calibration step based on the mathematical formulas given to us from the sponsors.

– Troubleshoot both the sensors and mobile application and perform live data collection to record incoming data.

Outcomes

– Implemented the wireframe designs into an android application.

– Integrated time sync process and calibration step into the mobile application.

– Able to display live arm angles from multiple respective sensors.