Design and Development of Mecanum-assisted Caster Platform: a Moderate Perturbation Device

A moderate perturbation device assists various population with neurological disorder, elderly and athletes, to strengthen their muscles around ankle and hip to strategically stabilize their balance during a perturbation. Current systems use tilt angle board technology to create a moderate perturbation or a complex design like cable-pulley system. We propose a novel mecanum-assisted caster platform (MACP) that can generate perturbation in multiple directions. The aim of the study is to design and test whether MACP generates moderate perturbation. 10 healthy participants volunteered for this study. KINVENT force-plates were used to collect the ellipsoidal surface area (ESA) and the weight distribution characteristics of the participants. To prove the ability of MACP to generate productive perturbation, a result of different perturbation characteristics of postural instability from the participants was expected while undergoing quiet stance(0.0 m/s²) and perturbation by MACP(0.5 and 1.0 m/s²). The MACP moved in anteroposterior and mediolateral directions. One-way ANOVA and Tukey's post hoc test were used to find any difference in ESA between three accelerations stages. The weight distribution characteristics between different directions of the platform movement were tested using MANOVA and Thkey's post hoc test. ESA was different for all three stages of acceleration and platform direction. Weight distribution between all three stages of acceleration and platform movement directions was different. However, using a post hoc test that analyzed a single leg performance, the anteroposterior direction had a non-significant (p-value 0.071) difference. The above results suggest that the MACP was able to generate productive perturbation.