APPLYING WIRELESS COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY TO FITNESS DEVICES

Transcription

1 APPLYING WIRELESS COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY TO FITNESS DEVICES Satu Keski-Jaskari Lappeenranta University of Technology P.O.Box 20, Lappeenranta, Finland Pekka Jäppinen Lappeenranta University of Technology P.O.Box 20, Lappeenranta, Finland Jari Porras Lappeenranta University of Technology P.O.Box 20, Lappeenranta, Finland ABSTRACT In this paper the use of fitness devices is considered and a new approach for communicating with them is proposed. This new communication architecture is based on the use of some personal trusted device and Bluetooth technology. Personal trusted device is used mainly as the storage of the personal information. The Bluetooth technology is used for connecting different elements of the fitness architecture. This proposed architecture allows the implementation of several new features and offers great benefits for both users and device manufacturers. KEYWORDS Wireless communication, Bluetooth, fitness devices, interconnectivity, personal trusted device 1. INTRODUCTION The use of different fitness devices has exploded during the last few years as the people do not need to move so much on their daily routines. As the well-being has increased people have started to use more automobiles and other motor assisted ways of moving around. In an urban living environment the possibilities for normal exercises may be limited. Fitness device manufacturers have developed different types of high tech machines to fulfill the needs of people. Figure 1 presents the information flow in current fitness architectures. The architecture contains elements such as the actual fitness device, monitors, sensors and analysis software. The information flow in most cases is based on user s memory thus making the connection between different elements inefficient. In some more advances architectures the use of smartcards is considered. However the use of them is limited to only few occasions. The role of each element of the fitness architecture is considered in the following list:

2 There exist several types of fitness devices, more than one for each muscle group. Devices can be categorized into groups such as running devices, bicycles, steppers, rowing machines and muscle trainers. Some of the groups, e.g. muscle trainers, may represent a larger set of separate devices. Almost all machines currently contain a large monitor/display that shows the information concerning the actual exercise. This information may be a distance traveled or a heart beat rate. The monitor unit may contain interfaces to external elements such as sensors or smartcards. Sensors, like the heart beat monitor, provide some physical information during the exercise. Smartcards are an advanced way of taking into consideration the personal properties of the exercising person. Smartcard may contain externally collected information, e.g. weight or fat percentage, as well as information gathered during the exercise, e.g. distance run or cycled, heart beat during the exercise or time taken into the exercise. Smartcard approach is implemented by a Finnish fitness device company [HUR03]. Smartcard can be used for transferring exercise information into some further analysis. Analysis software is used for the design of efficient exercises. Information is gathered from the exercise and it is saved into the analysis software. Software can be used for following the development of the exercising person. Several programs are offered by different device manufacturers [POL03]. Monitor Smartcard Sensor Fitness device Analysis software Figure 1. Players and techniques of personal training As the devices evolve and are developed into more high tech devices, it is more and more difficult to start exercising from the scratch. The analysis software may allow one to design a suitable training program but the transfer of this information into fitness devices should be easier. The approach presented by the [HUR03] is advisable, as it allows the transfer and usage of the personal information. However, this approach could be even 60

3 improved by using some wireless technology and the most common personal device, i.e. mobile phone. In this paper a wireless approach for connecting fitness devices into sensors and into analysis software is presented. The main goal is to provide a simple and usable approach for fitness device connectivity. This approach is based on the Bluetooth technology and mobile phones that are acting as the personal trusted device (PTD). The issues of storing personal information at the PTD are discussed in [JÄP03a]. This paper concentrates to the communication architecture and the necessary protocols between different players of the fitness architecture. 2. WIRELESS PTD BASED APPROACH In the current form the use of fitness devices is difficult as the settings, e.g. height, weight, distance, etc., need to be set separately for each fitness device. The use of smartcards makes it easier to transfer the required personal information between different elements of the fitness architecture. The operation of our approach is based on similar but still different enough idea. The approach presented in this paper is based on the concept of Personal Trusted Device (PTD) and its capability to store personal settings. Personal Trusted Device is a mobile terminal, e.g. phone, PDA, laptop, etc, containing the personal information, i.e. information required at the fitness architecture that can be used in different services for the benefit of the user [WAN02]. The role of PTD in our wireless fitness architecture is to act as the source of personal information [Jäp03b] and the temporary storage of the exercise information. Fitness device PTD Bluetooth Bluetooth Bluetooth Analysis software Sensor Figure 2. Wireless PTD based architecture Figure 2 presents the wireless PTD based approach. This approach is based on the use of Personal Trusted Device and the Bluetooth wireless communication technology. Each element of the fitness architecture is connected through the Bluetooth technology to the 61

4 mobile phone acting as the PTD. This standard communication interface allows communication between all Bluetooth enabled devices and makes it possible to extend the fitness architecture even more. 2 3 Exercise profile - Repeats - Parameters of each repeat - Exercise time - Weights - Parameters Repeats done Weights / repeat Breaks 1 User profile - Gender - Age - Weight - Oxygen uptake - Fat % Execise profile - Repeats / length of the exercise - Heart beat limits - Energy consumption - Muscle group - Parameters for the device - Weights 4 Heart beat Heart beat % of max min, max, avg heart beat Energy consumption Figure 3. Information exchanged in the PTD approach More than just communication technology is required. The form and contents of personal information need to be defined. Both personal, e.g. height, weight, age, preferences, disabilities, as well as exercise related parameters, e.g. exercise history, heart beat changes, designed exercises, timetables, etc. need to be specified. Figure 3 presents an example of the information that can be exchanged between the elements of the wireless fitness architecture. Numbers in the figure represent the order in which the exchange of information happens. For example in the first phase the exercise information is moved 62

5 from the analysis software to the personal trusted device and subsequently to the fitness device in the second phase. Some common markup language is required for the presentation of the necessary information. 3. OPERATION OF THE PTD BASED APPROACH The wireless PTD based fitness architecture may be used in different levels. In its simplest level the environment works passively as presented in Table 1. In this case the PTD is used mainly for configuring the fitness device and to collect the exercise data for further analysis. In more advanced approach (active operation) the fitness device may dynamically configure the fitness device for maximal effect according to the settings stored in the PTD. This is presented in Table 2. Table 1. Simple operation of the fitness environment Simple operation (Passive operation) 1. Type in/transfer your personal information to the analysis software 2. Fetch exercise data to your PTD 3. Go to fitness device and transmit exercise data to it 4. Let fitness device adjust to your definitions and do exercise 5. Get your data from fitness equipment 6. Transfer data back to analysis program for analysis Table 2. Advanced operation of the fitness environment Advanced operation (Active Operation) 1. Type in/transfer your personal information to the analysis software 2. Fetch exercise data to your heart rate monitor 3. Go to fitness device and transmit exercise data to it 4. Let fitness equipment adjust to your definitions and start exercise 5. Fitness equipment changes its settings while you exercise based on the reports of your heart rate and your preferences. 6. After exercise transmit the exercise data back to analysis software The interaction between different elements of the Bluetooth based communication architecture can be realized in several ways, i.e. with different profiles. Whatever approach is used the basic Bluetooth functionality needs to be added to provide the necessary communication functionality. Also the use of profiles, i.e. existing or new, should be considered carefully. These implementation issues are considered below: Object push and pull with OBEX In this approach the PTD works as the OBEX server and thus as a simple data storage. Fitness devices and analysis software provide the PUSH and PULL operations. For this approach some representation of the data is required. WAP and IP In this approach the PTD may contain the software and thus the intelligence. Devices that allow software downloading could be used for this approach. Own profile 63

6 Own profile would need the use of own program in all parts of the fitness architecture. This approach is designed to work over L2CAP layer of Bluetooth protocol stack which minimizes the amount of required protocol layers. The OBEX approach requires quite a many protocol layers and might be too heavy approach. OBEX is also a client centric protocol in a sense that all the actions are initiated by the client. Thus it would be hard to implement intelligence in the PTD side as it should stay as a plain OBEX server. On the other side the OBEX is readily supported by many mobile phones, which makes this approach technically possible. Also the OBEX functionality is enough for the passive approach. However, the ways to store the information need to be solved. Fitness device PTD Analysis program User interface User interface User interface Communication Software Communication Software Communication Software L2CAP L2CAP L2CAP Link Manager Link Manager Link Manager Link Controller HCI Link Controller Link Controller Radio Radio Radio Figure 4. Communication architecture WAP approach contains almost as many protocol layers as the OBEX approach and may, therefore, be quite heavy to implement and execute. Java enabled machines could allow this type of approach. The use of own profile would allow better performance as the number of required protocol layers is minimized. This approach would also provide a lot of intelligence to the implementation but would require a lot of effort. Even the definition of the own profile might require too much work. Whether the profile should actually be part of the Bluetooth standard is questionable. A Bluetooth independent protocol definition should be enough and would later on allow easy use of new wireless communication technologies. Figure 4 presents the proposed communication architecture of the wireless PTD based fitness architecture. All three elements of the architecture are based on the same structure. All elements have a user interface, communication software and L2CAP protocol layer. The interface is used for input and output purposes, i.e. user may interact with the elements through this part. Communication environment executes the commands given by the user. Application is built on top of Bluetooth s L2CAP layer as this layer offers sufficient and 64

7 simple enough functions for the implementation. This fulfills the goal of simplicity of the implementation. Press Create connection button Send Connection request Send Accept Connection Send user profile Set Settings Show ready for exercise on screen Send ready Figure 5. MSC of the operation of fitness architecture Figure 5 presents an example MSC for the proposed fitness architecture. This sequence of events initializes the connection (Create connection, Connection request and Accept connection messages) and configures the fitness device (User profile message and Set settings operation) according to the personal preferences. The user and the personal trusted device are notified (Ready messages) as soon as the configuration is performed. Several information structures are defined for the communication between different elements of the communication architecture. Both personal preferences and exercise information need to have their own structures. The following structures are defined at this moment: Between the PTD and the analysis software ProfileFull is transmitted from the analyzer to the PTD. This message consists of the personal parameters of the user. 65

8 Done message transmitted from the PTD to the analyzer and contains all the exercise information gathered since the last synchronization. Between the fitness device and the PTD UserProfile is transmitted from the PTD to the fitness device and contains the necessary parameters for the fitness device. These parameters allow the fitness device to personalize the device settings for the current user. Data that contains the executed exercise information. The internal structure of the stored information is implementation dependent. GoOn message consist of information concerning the current exercise. Ready message provides permission to start current exercise. 4. CONCLUSIONS In this paper simple fitness architecture based on the use of the Personal Trusted Device and the Bluetooth technology is described. Personal trusted device is used because it allows this type of personal usage of services. As the architecture is based on the standardized Bluetooth technology the user may use devices of different vendors around the whole world. For the user this proposed fitness architecture allows easier and more personalized experience of doing the exercise. The user may concentrate on doing efficient exercises without paying too much attention to the configuration of the devices. The usage is also simplified as the devices of different manufacturers work in a similar way. The actual exercise is an interactive experience where the user may collect exercise information to the PTD and analyze that later at the home. For manufacturers the proposed approach allows new interesting features. Manufacturers may rely that the users are equipped with a PTD that acts as the monitor for each fitness device. This decreases the manufacturing costs of fitness devices. At the same time the usage of different devices is offered through the same interface. The proposed fitness architecture allows a large number of new features to be implemented to the physical exercise and actual devices. Through Bluetooth communication the fitness device could be connected to some other context such as gaming environment or some exercise community. The fitness device may acts as a game pad for some videogame or workers may be required to do some exercises before allowing a coffee break. Different people could be connected into some exercise community where users are competing and supporting each other. Even some health care information could be included into the environment (predict possible problems as results are getting weaker). REFERENCES [GRA03] Gratton Dean A. Bluetooth Profiles: The definitive Guide. Prentice Hall, 2003 [HUR03] HUR Smart card system 66

9 [JÄP03a] [JÄP03b] [POL03] [WAN02] Jäppinen Pekka. Porras Jari. Analyzing the Attributes of Personalization Information Affecting Storage Location, IADIS International Conference on E-Society, June 2003, Lisbon, Portugal Jäppinen Pekka. Porras Jari. Transfer of personalization information from mobile device to transparent services, IASTED International conference on computer science and technology, May 2003, Cancun, Mexico. Polar personal trainer Want R., et. Al.: The personal server: changing the way we think about ubiquitous computing, UbiComp 2002,