Low Cost System for Mobility Recovery and Gait Analysis Based on
Inertial Navigation and Virtual Reality Techniques
Christian Ovalle
1a
, Sandra Meza
2b
, Wilver Auccahuasi
3c
, Oscar Linares
4d
, Kitty Urbano
5e
,
Emilio Rosario-Pacahuala
6f
, Yoni Nicolas-Rojas
7g
, Julio Garcia-Rodriguez
8h
,
Tamara Pando-Ezcurra
8i
and Zoran Herrera-Mejia
9j
1
Universidad Tecnológica del Perú, Lima, Peru
2
Universidad ESAN, Lima, Peru
3
Universidad Privada del Norte, Lima, Peru
4
Universidad Continental, Huancayo, Peru
5
Universidad Científica del Sur, Lima, Peru
6
Universidad de San Martin de Porres, Lima, Peru
7
Escuela superior la Pontificia, Ayacucho, Peru
8
Universidad Privada Peruano Alemana, Lima, Peru
9
Universidad Nacional de Trujillo, Lima, Peru
Keywords: Acceleration, Virtual Reality, Gyroscope, Minecraft, March.
Abstract: Mobility in people is a critical factor for their physical and emotional development, having any impairment
that prevents their mobilization can have detrimental effects on the person, these deficiencies in most cases
are caused by diseases and accidents. Their recovery depends in most cases on physical therapies and
rehabilitation exercises in adults. In the present work a recovery mechanism is proposed through recreational
activities, the proposal consists of the use of gaming technology, based on the Minecraft game, added to
virtual reality technology, in which the patient will perform the proposed exercises, but will perceive that he
is playing, the results are related to the measurements of biomechanical variables that occur with the use of
sensors such as the gyroscope, where the registration of movement is presented graphically, through which
you can identify any of the pathologies related to the process of walking.
1 INTRODUCTION
Medicine is one of the areas where technology is
applied, in this sense we have equipment that perform
the recording of physiological variables, such as
equipment that record signals of EEG, EOG, EMG
a
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5559-5684
b
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4650-1340
c
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8820-4013
d
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7952-9518
e
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2009-000X
f
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2421-548X
g
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6493-6084
h
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1073-0969
i
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0301-3440
j
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0978-8167
and others, to highly complex equipment such as
magnetic resonators and a great variety. For this
reason, we always pay attention to the technological
development applied to the design of new devices,
based on the application of hardware and software.
586
Ovalle, C., Meza, S., Auccahuasi, W., Linares, O., Urbano, K., Rosario-Pacahuala, E., Nicolas-Rojas, Y., Garcia-Rodriguez, J., Pando-Ezcurra, T. and Herrera-Mejia, Z.
Low Cost System for Mobility Recovery and Gait Analysis Based on Inertial Navigation and Virtual Reality Techniques.
DOI: 10.5220/0011962400003612
In Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Automation, Information and Computing (ISAIC 2022), pages 586-591
ISBN: 978-989-758-622-4; ISSN: 2975-9463
Copyright
c
 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Reviewing the literature, we found several works
related to the application of technologies to solve
problems related to the health field, such as the case
of proposing mechanisms to send biomedical signals
in telemedicine applications, ensuring data integrity
(Rojas, 2022). Among the works related to ensuring
the exchange of information, we find works related to
being able to interact between different devices, with
the intention of ensuring interoperability between
devices (Herrera, 2021).
Works related to the use of the techniques
provided by virtual reality, we find works that
recommend the use of different mechanisms to
exploit these techniques to improve the performance
of the new solutions, as is the case of the use of the
WIFI 6 network (Auccahuasi, 2021), the use of these
techniques allows the maximum exploitation of
computational resources for the benefit of the
execution of virtual simulation techniques
(Auccahuasi, 2021).
When we apply virtual reality techniques, we find
works related to the exploitation of these techniques,
one of these areas where they are being used more
frequently is the case of education, with the
presentation of works where virtual reality techniques
are applied (Auccahuasi, 2021).
We found works related to the exploitation of
technology for the benefit of the recovery of the
mobility of the upper and lower limbs, by performing
rehabilitation exercises, using IOT technologies
(Auccahuasi, 2021). These processes are achieved
thanks to the exploitation of images and video, all
these taken to a virtual environment (Auccahuasi,
2020). The use of these technologies is
complemented by the use of various devices such as
gyroscopes and inertial navigators that help to
increase the data in order to be analyzed (Auccahuasi,
2021).
One of the techniques related to muscle recovery,
are those dedicated to train the brain to be able to
relearn how the movement of the course is and how
its extremities interact in order to perform it
(Auccahuasi, 2019). These techniques are
complemented by the use of various devices such as
those that evaluate the signal of the muscle, where the
recovery of the muscle is tested using different
techniques and technologies (Auccahuasi, 2019).
These works are complemented with the use of other
techniques, as is the case of the brain-computer
interface to evaluate the behavior of the brain when
the rehabilitation exercises are being performed
(Auccahuasi, 2019).
Our proposal is based on having a low cost system
for the recovery of mobility under gait analysis, using
inertial navigation technology and virtual reality,
based on the popular game that most children know,
as is the case of Minecraft, this game used by
designing a virtual environment, where patients as a
game performs rehabilitation exercises, such as
walking in a straight line, dodging obstacles, jumping
in others, the control of the virtual scenarios are
performed by recording the movements and the
movement by the patient based on a gyroscope,
giving the patient the feeling that he is playing in real
time, these electronic components are housed in a
support that the patient is placed on the chest,
managing to record the movement of the patient, the
most outstanding is to involve the patient who are
mostly children in performing the exercises as it is
more interesting to play than to exercise.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
Working with children has a special task, which is to
understand what they like that attracts them and these
requirements lead us to analyze what videogame can
lead us to do rehabilitation exercises without them
being stressed in thinking they are doing their
therapies, the chosen one is the Minecraft, for its
practicality in designing virtual scenarios and the
sensation of walking that one has when navigating the
stage, we eliminate all types of visual interference if
we submit it to a virtual environment, eliminating all
kinds of distraction, this feature is achieved with the
use of virtual reality lenses, with this we have ensured
that the child is involved in the therapy exercises, we
would lack as we can give the integration to the game
as if the child was involved in the game without The
need for a jostick or keyboard, this requirement was
solved with the incorporation of a gyroscope which is
going We sent the game to the game and we achieved
that the game is mobilized with the action of walking
patient, completed the mechanisms of integration into
the game, the movement recorded by the patient is
represented in a displacement graph that tells us how
is the patient's march, then we develop each
component described.
2.1 Analysis of the March
The analysis of the gait is characterized in that the
patient can move without problems, we call normal
movement to the movement performed in a patient
without difficulty, moving without problems, taking
the foot forward one after the other, this exercise has
to perform without causing some kind of physical
exhaustion or presenting some type of muscular
Low Cost System for Mobility Recovery and Gait Analysis Based on Inertial Navigation and Virtual Reality Techniques
587

fatigue. When this displacement is done with some
extra effort, caused by an additional effort, by
presenting difficulty of accompanying the foot and in
some cases by performing an abnormal movement of
the body such as moving the hip in a non-uniform
way, each of these movements can be represent by
means of standard graphs, where the registry
determines if the patient presents some graphic
deviation which would indicate a pathology of the
march.
2.2 Recovery of Mobility
When we talk about recovery of mobility, we are
referring to the patient can perform a normal march in
cases when there is some immobilization of some
lower limb, for different reasons, by an operation or
immobilization, brings unfavorable effects on the
joints which causes The patient walks poorly, such as
dragging the foot, not bending the knee, which causes
him not to be able to move in a straight line, among
other deficiencies that can be observed at the moment
he walks.
2.3 Component of Inertial Navigation
Techniques
Among the components that make up the inertial
navigator, we have an Altimu-10 gyroscope that will
register the movements in the three axes in order to
identify the movement when the patient is walking,
the gyroscope values are sent to the data acquisition
card, in our case the arduino lilypad, we chose this
card because it provides us the facility to be able to
attach to our support, having the values of the
gyroscope we use the bluetooth module model HC-60
with what we can transmit to the computer the
movement of the patient.
Figure 1: Altimi-10 gyroscope module and Bluetooth HC-
60.
Figure 2: Arduino Lilypad data acquisition module.
2.4 Component Virtual Reality
The virtual reality component is made up of the
Minecraft video game and virtual reality lenses,
which works through the use of a cell phone that
connects to the computer to view the video game.
Figure 3: Minecraft video game.
Figure 4: Virtual reality lenses.
2.5 Proposal
The proposal is characterized in being able to use the
gyroscope and its components, but we will give
emphasis to the development of the virtual scenarios,
ISAIC 2022 - International Symposium on Automation, Information and Computing
588

which is the mechanism where the patient performed
the interaction, developed four levels each with a
particular exercise, and increased the degree of
difficulty.
Figure 5: First level of exercise.
The first level is characterized by presenting an
exercise where the patient tries to walk in a straight
line following the red path without stepping on the
garden.
Figure 6: Second First level of exercise.
The second level is characterized by red obstacles
in the path, the patient has to walk on the red path
without hitting the wooden obstacles.
Figure 7: Third level of exercise.
The third level, is characterized by increasing the
complexity of the exercise, at this level the patient has
to walk in fine form, the path is presented in a narrow
way and does not have to hit the walls.
Figure 8: Fourth level of exercise.
The fourth level is the most complex, presents a
greater challenge where the patient has to jump
simulating that the floor is lava, with this exercise you
can verify that the patient can walk and jump without
problems.
The fifth level is characterized in being able to
perform the exercise of being able to choose one of
the boxes that are at the end of the room, with this
exercise we can identify that the patient controls the
direction when walking, with these exercises we can
recover the patient being able to control their steps, to
be able to jump, to be able to walk without tripping,
the exercises can be performed consecutively until the
patient regains mobility.
Figure 9: Fifth level of exercise.
3 RESULTS
The results presented are the result of an evaluation
of the system, based on three concepts, the first is the
patient's record when it is stopped, the second
corresponds to the record when the patient walks
normally and the third corresponds when the patient
Low Cost System for Mobility Recovery and Gait Analysis Based on Inertial Navigation and Virtual Reality Techniques
589

presents a difficulty when walking, these three
records can be seen in the following graphs:
Figure 10: Registration when the patient is stopped.
In the record of figure 10, it can be seen that the
value remains constant as time passes, so it can be
deduced that the patient is stopped.
Figure 11: Record when the patient walks normally.
In the record of figure 11, it can be observed that
the data form a wave that repeats in a constant way,
with which it can be deduced that the patient walks in
a normal and consecutive way, some alteration in the
shape of the wave, represents Some difficulty at the
moment you walk.
Figure 12: Record when the patient walks poorly.
In the record of figure 12, it can be observed that
the data form a wave that is not constant, presenting
a variety of waves of different width, which
corresponds to a patient who has problems when
walking through the irregularity of the signal.
Figure 13: Front and back view of the system, with the
components placed on the patient.
Figure 13 shows the virtual reality lenses placed
on the patient, as well as the gyroscope placed in the
navel of the patient, because it is the center of gravity
of the patient and is where the registration and graphic
analysis will be performed. On the back of the stand,
you can see the acquisition card as the wireless
transmission module.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Among the conclusions that we can describe, at the
time of finalizing the design and carrying out the first
field tests, we are given the degree of acceptance that
the system has on the part of the children, because
they get excited when presenting the game instead of
the exercise to be performed, with this we eliminate
the classic problems that arise in children by their
very nature of being distracted at the time of
performing the exercise. From the point of view of
design, it was possible to couple the components, in
such a way that the interaction between the
acquisition mechanism and the computer where the
videogame is installed is achieved, this wireless
connection allows the patient to feel total control of
the game. mobilize in a natural way, and technically
it is possible to have the register of the variables that
you want to analyze, in the practical case the variable
center of gravity was registered recording the
movement that occurs in the navel, so the movement
originates a continuous wave indicating the
continuity of the steps at the time of walking. A
recording and visualization different from the
characteristic wave correspond to a deficiency at the
time of walking. The system can be scaled, increasing
the number of gyros in other parts of the body that it
ISAIC 2022 - International Symposium on Automation, Information and Computing
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is necessary to analyze and be able to better describe
the pathology.
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