Facilities & Equipment

The O.P.En. Mobility Lab occupies 895 square feet of state-of-the-art research space within the Health Sciences Complex at the STAR campus. Our lab is designed specifically for biomechanical analysis of individuals with and without assistive devices. The laboratory includes the following primary equipment:

Qualisys Motion Capture

Our 12-camera high-speed/resolution motion capture system (Qualisys AB) is used to capture the kinematics of the human body during various tasks (walking, running, etc.).

Bertec Instrumented Treadmill

Our split-belt instrumented treadmill (Bertec, Inc.) is used to capture the forces the human body exerts on the treadmill during various tasks. The treadmill is located in a sunken section of the floor (pit) with a custom-built hinged infill flooring system, which means the top surface of the treadmill is flush with the floor, but we can still access the treadmill for maintenance.

Instrumented Body Weight Support System

Our custom-designed overhead fall-prevention and bodyweight-support system is designed for use during treadmill activities. The system has two modes of operations: 1) as a safety harness to prevent falls to the floor and 2) as a method for providing a precise level of body weight unloading.  When used in body weight support mode, this system dynamically off loads a consistent percentage of a person’s body weight via overhead support.

FaroArm

Our 3-D Fusion FaroArm (FARO Technologies Inc.) is used to capture human shape by digitizing discrete points on the segment(s) of interest or laser scanning.