Riding simulator designed with cerebral palsy patients in mind

A horse riding simulator that can also be tuned to replicate the human walk has been designed by researchers for hippotherapy in cerebral palsy rehabilitation.

Wildan Trusaji and his fellow researchers, writing in the journal Machines, said their design has advantages compared to other mechanical horses.

It uses only one motor as the sole actuator, minimizing costs and power consumption. This is achieved by designing a mechanism involving cams and followers that simulates horse movements.

It provides different movement phases between the shoulder and hip, mimicking horse body movements; and can be tuned to simulate a human walking gait.

"We also know that our design has much room for improvement," they said. One of them is reducing the weight of the design to improve its mobility.

Another required improvement is installing safety measures such as a harness or weight support, especially when the device is intended for children with cerebral palsy.

The study team said they plan to integrate their riding simulator into their exergaming software project so that the user can control both the in-game horse and the mechanical horse.

"More importantly, we are also working on the design to comply with the Indonesian National Standard so that our device can go through clinical trials with actual cerebral palsy patients."

The authors said hippotherapy is a popular rehabilitation method for children with cerebral palsy, which is done by riding either a real horse or a riding simulator. They cited the high costs involved in using real horses.

"Most horse riding simulator devices commonly sold in the market are designed as exercise devices, not rehabilitation devices," they noted. Most are designed to simulate a horse's walk, trot, canter, or gallop gait at various speeds.

Hippotherapy for cerebral palsy patients aims to improve their walking ability. Therefore, it would be beneficial for a riding simulator to be able to replicate the walking gait of a healthy human.

This motivated the team to design and build a simulator suitable for hippotherapy.

They first studied and observed the walking gait cycle of a horse, then analyzed and derived a formula for it.

They then designed their simulator to replicate a horse's walking gait, and then tuned it to replicate a human walking gait. To measure the performance of their design, they compared the gait of the user when riding the device versus walking.

In future research, they intend to control the speed of the simulator through a computer as part of integrating it with their exergaming software.

Manual control of the simulator's speed can be done by inputting a specified voltage to the inverter of the control unit.

They used an actual saddle on the simulator, which is attached with a girth – much like on a real horse.

Trusaji, W.; Satriawan, A.; Rahadini, S.S.; Hasanuddin, M.O.; Setianingsih, C.; Pratomo, N.; Selekta, M.C.; Sungkar, E. Horse Riding Simulator Design to Replicate Human Walking Gait for Hippotherapy in Cerebral Palsy Rehabilitation. Machines 2022, 10, 1060. https://doi.org/10.3390/machines10111060

The study, published under a Creative Commons License, can be read here.