Computational approach to assess postural tests under microgravity conditions

Abstract

Human vestibular system is extremely fragile and rapidly degrades when gravity is significantly lower than the gravity of Earth. Unfortunately, current balance assessment tools, including state-of-start computerized centre-of-mass measurement platforms, cannot be used in space because of the low gravity. Thus, a problem of developing new methods to assess postural stability under microgravity conditions is very important. This paper describes a distance-based criterion to estimate multidimensional measurements and its application for postural tests assessment. It has been shown that proposed criterion may be effectively used to estimate the equilibrium function by means of low-end hardware, which does not rely on the gravitational force. The criterion was compared against several known indexes and its ability to distinguish disorders of the balance has been studied.