Physiological Signal Monitoring for A Novel Horse Sling Design

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Musculoskeletal injuries are frequently encountered in equine medicine. A promising rehabilitation approach is to employ a sling to facilitate recovery, by accommodating the biomechanics of horse motion. However, currently available sling designs lack the instrumentation necessary for quantifying the horse posture and physiological conditions. This problem has attracted the interest of the industry partner RMD Engineering Inc. The company has recently designed a lift system for aiding in the rehabilitation of people with multiple sclerosis. In this project, a sensor monitoring system is proposed to acquire physiological signals necessary for a novel horse sling design, that can be dynamically reconfigured to best suit the horse health conditions. As a starting point, a conventional Anderson horse sling will be equipped with various sensors, including temperature, moisture and pressure sensors. The sensors will be placed at strategic locations on the horse body, corresponding to the known pressure points in the horse anatomy. Since long-term monitoring with multiple horses is envisioned, the challenge is to design a resource-efficient monitoring system, but which is also sufficiently flexible and robust to be conveniently installed on multiple horses under different conditions. From a technical perspective, the research problems involve resource allocation as well as adaptive control and signal processing, in order to realize a robust and efficient sensor network system. The outcome of this project should facilitate the industry partner RMD in improving its manufacturing process, allowing the company to be more productive and competitive, and thus to expand sales and increase job opportunities, particularly at the Saskatchewan manufacturing facility. Furthermore, as acknowledged in recent initiatives known as One Health, veterinary medicine has become an integral aspect in human society. In this case, it is expected that the lessons learned in treating equine musculoskeletal injuries will also be extendable to the human counterparts. Such achievements would have a tremendous impact on the quality of life, in improving health and saving the lives of both animals and humans.