The TactaPack: A Wireless Sensor/Actuator Package for Physical Therapy Applications

Abstract

In this paper, we present preliminary work we have done on designing the TactaPack, a wearable sensor/actuator device that uses a Bluetooth wireless connection to return sensor data to a host, and to receive commands to initiate expressive vibrotactile stimuli. We present our work in the context of a physical therapy application designed to provide more autonomy for patients when performing rehabilitative exercises. This assistive technology has the potential to reduce injuries during therapy due to improper patient joint movement, and decrease the workload of physical therapists, thereby reducing healthcare costs. Though still in the early stages of design, we believe the TactaPack can be used to produce systems that are less cumbersome than current, wired solutions, and simplify the creation of high-level applications by offloading from the CPU to the device the process of sensing, testing against threshold values, and actuation.