Arash Arami, Professor of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo, said, “Those who learned faster and performed better, strongly adopted the ankle strategy, meaning they activated or co-existed the muscles around them.” – Activated by controlling the movement of his ankle.” , Canada and senior author of a new study. It is reported in the magazine
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A hoverboard consists of a motor and two wheels attached to a platform. Riders walk and balance with their feet, although some models are self-balancing.
While new riders would be wise to focus on ankle movement, the study by researchers from Canada, the United Kingdom and Japan also showed that the central nervous system somehow knows the best strategy to use. .
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After a brief introduction session, volunteers were primarily relying on ankle movements within a few minutes of moving the hoverboard back and forth using three different foot positions.
“The process of learning to ride a hoverboard is largely subconscious,” Arami said. “Interestingly, our central nervous system can usually detect this without any instruction, so take it easy and enjoy the ride.”
Researchers believe that ankle motion is primarily used to learn to ride because they are the joints closest to the board, with primates generally learning better with their hands and feet and the central nervous system. The mechanism often tries to reduce muscle effort.
The hoverboard was used by the researchers as a tool to investigate how the central nervous system, including the neural networks in the brain and spinal cord, controls human movement.
The results have implications for the design of platforms for balance training for older adults at risk of falls and stroke survivors in rehabilitation clinics. They can also help with the design of similar equipment such as hoverboards and snowboards.
Researchers are interested in using the technology to eventually develop assisted and rehabilitative robotics systems to allow people with disabilities to regain leg motion.
“Hoverboards, as simple as they appear, help us learn how we control our lower limbs and deepen our understanding of human motor control,” Arami said.
Arami and Mohamed Shushtari, lead author and PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo in Canada, collaborated with engineers from the NTT Communication Sciences Laboratories in Japan and the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in the UK to conduct this research.
Source: Eurekalert
