Utilizing Teslasuit to Analyze Changes in Joint Angles and Galvanic Skin Responses During Slips (A Stress-Inducing Task)

When experiencing dangerous situations, humans have two different responses: fight or flight. During these moments, the sympathetic nervous system takes over and causes the body to work overtime to give the person the best chance at survival. Although the average person doesn’t face a life-or-death experience every day, slips are fairly common and can trigger this fight-or-flight response. Exploring what happens during a slip and quantifying a body’s response can be difficult. Still, with the help of motion capture suits and biometric sensors, there is a unique opportunity to learn more about the kinematics and physiological responses of the human body. In this study, the Teslasuit, which consists of 14 Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) Sensors, and 34 reflective markers were placed on the bony processes to collect motion capture data. Participants also wore the Empatica E4 watch to record stress levels and heart rate. The Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) was used to record stress levels by measuring the skin conductance as it differs before and after the slip activity. Data was collected from 7 females and 5 males. Subjects were asked to complete a 5-minute walking trial followed by a 10-minute blind slip trial, where they were expecting to slip in both trials. The slip occurred unexpectedly (at randomized time frames) during the ten-minute trial. This experiment analyzes GSR and joint angle measurements when the participant undergoes an unexpected slip. Along with studying the stress response, the accuracy of the Teslasuit in capturing motion data will also be tested for future experiments. We hypothesize that joint angles and stress levels will decrease during repeated slips because the participant will begin adapting (learning effect) to the test with each additional slip