Measurement of wheelchair users' activity level for developing a small device

The goal of our study was to provide wheelchair users with a novel device that allows them to easily determine the level of activity necessary to prevent metabolic syndrome. Previously, we proposed a system that measured wheelchair movements using a rotary encoder and accelerometer, and counted the number of wheelchair strokes for three levels of acceleration intensity. This paper presents the experimental results from measurement of the wheelchair activities of 17 spinal cord injury (SCI) individuals in the Kibikogen Rehabilitation Center using developed system. Our proposed method can estimate traveling distance by the number of strokes at three levels of intensity, identified by the acceleration signal.