Overview
Recovering from surgery or injury often means relearning how to move correctly, but most physical therapy exercises are done at home without supervision or feedback. Progress between sessions is tracked by feel rather than data. Form Flex is a wearable system that measures how patients move and gives them personalized feedback on their form.
Existing solutions fall short for home use. Camera-based products depend on lighting, angle, and calibration, and can feel intimidating for older patients. Sensor-based products tend to be either too limited to be accurate or full-body systems that are expensive and built for clinic use. Form Flex uses a small number of sensors placed on the arm and waist to stay accurate while remaining simple to wear.
Each sensor node pairs an IMU with onboard sensor fusion and a low-power wireless microcontroller running Zephyr RTOS. Nodes stream timestamped orientation data over Bluetooth to a central hub, which synchronizes them and forwards the data to a mobile app. The app calculates joint angles, shows a live 3D model of the user's movement, and suggests form corrections, while physical therapists review progress through a separate dashboard.
Developed by a team of six, advised by Professor Chuck DiMarzio.
Key features
- Battery-powered wearable sensor nodes on the arm and waist
- Onboard sensor fusion for accurate orientation tracking
- Wireless node-to-hub communication with clock synchronization
- Joint angle calculation normalized to the user's body measurements
- Live 3D visualization of exercise form
- AI-generated form correction suggestions
- Patient and physical therapist views
- Custom PCB design
