About Digital Fitness Trainer

Welcome to the online home of our senior design project. DFT is a piece of exercise equipment combined with wearable technology that will allow users to do strength training with a reduced risk of injury. We will provide users with a Microsoft Kinect that will use our software to look for signs of improper form, as well as a pair of compression shorts with surface electromyography (sEMG) probes and an embedded system. The Kinect will allow our software to warn the user when they are exercising incorrectly, and the shorts will allow the software to warn the user when their muscles are approaching the fatigue threshold. The combination of these sources of information will allow the DFT software to help users work out properly and avoid overexertion.

Meet the Team

Justin Gardner EE

Justin is the team lead of this project. His responsiblities include designing and developing the sEMG network, which will monitor the user's fatigue level.This sensor network is built into a pair of wearable shorts

Nathan Reynolds EE

Nathan's responsibilities include developing the embedded system of the project which is key for communication between the windows application and the sensors.

Chris Corbo CSE

Chris's responsibilities include developing a bluetooth application to process the received data from the micro-controller. The data is then processed to find the median power frequency, which is used for an index of fatigue. This data is then passed to the GUI.

Ben Sherman CSE

Ben's responsibilites include developing a windows application that monitors the users form in order to find faults in the user's form through a Microsoft Kinect. This data is then presented to the user through a GUI.

Documents

Presentations related to our current/future project plans are available for download below.

Design and Block Diagram

The user's exertion level is monitored through surface EMG sensors that the user is wearing in a pair of shorts. The embedded system controls which sensors are activated and relays the data received from the sensors to the laptop application via Bluetooth. The data processing takes place in the laptop application which determines the exertion level of the user. The user's workout form is captured by the motion-tracking Microsoft Kinect sensor, the application then looks for faults in the user's form. The user's form combined with the exertion levels received from the sensors are presented to the users through a GUI in real time. The ultimate goal of the Digital Fitness Trainer is to prevent injurys that occur from over-exertion and improper form.