Design and Development of a Smart Exercise Bike for Motor Rehabilitation in Individuals with Parkinson's Disease

Abstract

Recent studies in rehabilitation of Parkinson's disease (PD) have shown that cycling on a tandem bike at a high pedaling rate can reduce the symptoms of the disease. In this research, a smart motorized bicycle has been designed and built for assisting Parkinson's patients with exercise to improve motor function. The exercise bike can accurately control the rider's experience at an accelerated pedaling rate while capturing real-time test data. Here, the design and development of the electronics and hardware as well as the software and control algorithms are presented. Two control algorithms have been developed for the bike; one that implements an inertia load (static mode) and one that implements a speed reference (dynamic mode). In static mode the bike operates as a regular exercise bike with programmable resistance (load) that captures and records the required signals such as heart rate, cadence and power. In dynamic mode the bike operates at a user-selected speed (cadence) with programmable variability in speed that has been shown to be essential to achieving the desired motor performance benefits for PD patients. In addition, the flexible and extensible design of the bike permits readily changing the control algorithm and incorporating additional I/O as needed to provide a wide range of riding experiences. Furthermore, the network-enabled controller provides remote access to bike data during a riding session.

Keywords: Parkinson’s disease; control systems; forced exercise; rehabilitation; signal processing; smart exercise bike; tandem cycling.

Figures

Fig. 1

Functional diagram of the Smart Bike.

Fig. 2

Electrical and electronics components diagram of the bike

Fig. 3

Block diagram of the heart rate monitoring system.

Fig. 4

Smart exercise bike, completed system

Fig. 5

Closed loop control block diagram of the samrt bike in static mode.

Fig. 6

Closed loop control block diagram of the samrt bike in dynamic mode.

Fig. 7

PanelView control screen.

Fig. 8

Smart Bike real test data for two PD patients; (a) Static mode; (b) Dynamic mode.