Development of an evaluation system for upper limb function using AR technology

Abstract

This paper develops a prototype system for evaluating upper limb function that combines Internet of Things (IoT) and Augmented Reality (AR) technology. IoT builds the network of patients, test environment and doctor's surgery from which the system gathers and exchanges data such as the speeds and locations of hand movement. With the help of AR technology, the real-world test environment is overlaid with the information (e.g. the instructions from doctors, the progress of evaluation) gathered from the IoT. Compared to the conventional system, the detailed information of hand movement supports further assessments and the instructions generated in the AR scene for patients relieve the burden of doctors. The control experiments were conducted to explore the effects of the object size, the existence of obstacles and the hand dominance on the upper limb function using the developed system. The results verified the validity of the developed system.