Affordable Wearable Devices with Low-Latency Wireless Communication

This paper discusses the use of wireless wearable devices for use in an emerging field of biomechanical feedback systems in sports and rehabilitation. Timing is particularly critical for biomechanical feedback systems where all operations should be completed in real time. Wearable devices in such systems must perform multiple processes in parallel, ensuring that certain processes are performed at certain times and certain processes are performed within certain time limits. We solved this challenge by using a lightweight real-time operating system for the microcontroller. We have tested our device extensively under a variety of different conditions and scenarios. The results can be used as guidelines for the optimal setting of sensor sampling frequency and number of samples in a packet, to show the limitations of such systems in terms of transmission delays and jitter, or for any other use in real-time biomechanical feedback systems.