Development of Balance Board with Virtual Reality

Abstract

Balance impairment of the body occurred due to disruption in the sensorimotor control systems which involved the sensory input (vision, proprioception and vestibular), integration of input (cerebellum, cerebral cortex and brainstem) and motor output (vestibulo-ocular reflex and motor impulse). Vestibular disorder in BPPV patient lead to balance impairment that caused fall, and this required the patient to perform repetitive balance rehabilitation. The goal of this development is to create an innovative approached for balance rehabilitation via wobble board with a VR training environment. This development used wobble board and VR headset as the main equipment connected to IMU sensor, Bluetooth module and Wi-Fi Module which were interfaced with Arduino Uno board. Laptop is used as the platform for monitoring system by using ThingSpeak as an IoT platform. The software was modified to properly interfaced all the components to create an effective system for this development. IMU sensor and Bluetooth module were tested and verified to work properly together with wobble board and VR skateboard game. Thus, the angular motions of the wobble board are similar to the movements of VR skateboard as calibrated in the coding. A monitoring platform by using ThingSpeak was created for the therapist to monitor BPPV patient’s balance rehabilitation progress. As a conclusion, the project goal has been successfully achieved, resulting an interesting and motivating balance rehabilitation environment.