Abstract
Abstract Patients often report an effect after surgery of the anterior cruciate ligament which is called "giving way". This manifest itself by a drop of the knee or a felt instability. This phenomenon is difficult to measure and validate because it usually does not occur regularly and is not reproducible under laboratory conditions. The Knetex project takes up this point by trying to actively support the rehabilitation process with a bandage that can be worn in everyday life and is constructed as a smart textile using sensors and actuators. For this purpose, on the one hand it is attempted to actively record the phenomenon of the "giving way" by measuring knee angles etc. and by active user feedback. At the same time, the patient is specifically advised by means of actuators to correct incorrect posture or movement in order to make the rehabilitation process more effective and prevent further damage. Two 9-axis IMUs (inertial measurement units) form the basis of the system. These are used together with a textile strain sensor to calculate the knee angles. This paper gives an overview of the planned system, the initial experiments to measure the knee angles and the first results of the actuator study.
Highlights
In the field of knee angle measurement, systems already exist for research and commercial applications with different focus settings
The correctness of the knee angles determined with the help of the IMUs is checked by a motion capturing (MoCap) system
The results show that vibration as an actuator was recognized faster, better and more clearly than the thermal stimulation which took a few seconds to reach its maximum temperature of 40° and was often not even noticed
Summary
In the field of knee angle measurement, systems already exist for research and commercial applications with different focus settings. In the "Knetex" project, a sensor-based textile aid is being developed to help patients with surgically treated anterior cruciate ligament ruptures in rehabilitation, as well as in everyday life and sports, to avoid incorrect posture and incorrect strain. Julia Demmer et al, Knetex – Development of a textile-integrated sensor system for feedback-supported rehabilitation after surgery of the anterior cruciate ligament — 2. The key point is the Knetex device (in Figure 1: top right) that currently consists of a textile carrier in the form of a bandage in which sensors and actuators are integrated to detect the movements and angles of the user's knee and to notify the user in case of incorrect movements. The publication focuses on the presentation of the initial work on the design of the bandage with sensors and actuators and on the processing of the data for the calculation of the knee angles
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