Data acquisition system for Measurements in Free Moving Subjects and its Applications

A low cost portable acquisition system for monitoring and processing human biomechanical parameters is presented. It is equipped with 16 input channels, each one linked to an external transducer by a suitable connector. Input signals from sensors are converted into a digital form by a 12 bit analog to digital converter and stored in a removable memory (memory card) respecting the PCMCIA standard interface, so allowing download of acquired data towards an host computer. The acquisition operating mode is programmable by a host PC writing proper values into the memory card; then the instrument acquires the defined number of channels at the selected sampling rate. The instrument is battery powered and then it can be used in all those applications, like rehabilitation and sport medicine, where the freedom for subject movement is a constraint for the test. In fact, this instrument doesn’t require an arranged environment for measurements and it isn’t connected to a PC. Three sample applications are presented into which the instrument is used to evaluate human motor capability, physical parameters in amputees and motor performance in athletes.