Connected Capacitive Sensor Array for Upper-Extremity Motor Rehabilitation

This paper proposes a rehabilitation assitant system equipped with a capacitor sensor array for persons exhibiting upper-extremity motor impairments. The capacitive sensor array utilizes mutual capacitance to quantize patients’ hand motions on a rehabilitation activity board. The rehabilitation board is equipped with an accelerometer to detect the slope of the activity board, since different inclinations of motions may affect the motor quality post trauma. A microcontroller – a Texas Instruments MSP430FR2633 – is used to measure capacitance. A secondary microcontroller – an ATmega 328P with the Arduino firmware – is used to retrieve capacitive sensor and accelerometer data, and transfer data via Bluetooth to a web capable edge device. The edge device hosts a webpage displaying the patients hand positions and the slope position of the activity board to enable visual feedback during and after rehabilitation sessions.