System for registration and analysis of human stabilograms

This work describes new system for registration and analysis of human stabilograms. Open-source Arduino platform is used as microcontroller to collect data from four force sensors, which is sampled by differential ADC at 10 Hz with 24 bit resolution. Metrological evaluation of the system performance was made showing acceptable standard deviation and probability density distribution of the measurement error. Graphic User Interface application was build allowing user to perform calibration, recording and analysis of the center of pressure time evolution. During experiments, participants were performing six tasks, where each following task had some part of biological systems that participate in maintaining balance excluded (visual system first, then proprioception system, then both of them). It was discovered that decreasing of posture stability leads to spectral power redistribution from low to higher frequencies. Also, distribution plot of the frontal plane has appeared to be more Hat for tasks with standing on one leg. This may mean that instability in the frontal plane is larger due to less contact area of the foot with the supporting surface. It was concluded that developed system can be used by researchers to study Center of Pressure evolution, by clinicians to quantitatively assess balance and to diagnose possible balance problems on early stage. System's documentation is an open-source and published on Github development platform, it contains assembling recommendations, software usage guide and firmware code, so everyone can use it and construct own pressure platform.