Twist-Sensing Knee Band
Project active
Fall 2019 - Spring 2020
Problem:
Knee injuries can get worse if a person continues to use the injured knee or if the injury was not properly diagnosed. This can lead to long-term effects that can inhibit full function of the knee.
A knee band that can track the bending and rotation of the user's knee and track if it has been extended past a safe threshold or if there has been a large impact.
Solution:
Summary
The goal of the Twist-Sensing Knee Band project is to create a non-constraining knee sleeve that can track the movements of the user's knee. This would be utilized to identify possible injuries and their severity, monitor recovery progress, and analyze general movement. We will accomplish this by integrating subtle sensors into the knee sleeve that measure side to side movements of the knee which are often the cause of injuries. The data will then be analyzed and displayed to the user via an app.
Current Progress
The project is still in the early prototyping and ideation phase. Our team is currently working on creating two systems to measure the anterior to posterior movement of the knee. One potential method is to connect a potentiometer to the side of the brace in order to measure the change in angle of the knee. The other method is to use a variable resistor cord to measure the elongation while the knee is bending.
Future Goals
In the future, we will be implementing sensors to track lateral to medial movement of the knee as well as twisting motion of the knee. We will then write code to interpret the collected data which will be presented to the user via an app.