Proceedings of 1st International Symposium for Color Science and Art 2019

Development of a Pole that Provides Information
Using Color of Light
Yuta Ogai, Hiroto Akiyama, Kihiro Kawahara, Keisuke Kojima, Daiki Tanaka,Kenishi Sakaguchi*, Naoaki Fujimoto, Masahiko Yamamoto
Tokyo Polytechnic Univ., 1583 Iiyama, Atsugi, Kanagawa 243-0297, Japan* Technosolution Co., Ltd., 2-21-10 Shinkawa, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0033 Japan
Raspberry Pi can receive the information from the sensor
about every 0.01 seconds. The Raspberry Pi automaticallystarts the program when powered on, and the color of theLED changes based on the sensor information.

ABSTRACTWalking sticks and poles have been widely used by
the handicapped elderly, and the optically challenged toassist walking. In healthy subjects, poles have been used
to move the body with more ease, such as in climbing andNordic walking. We consider that the poles would be able
to perform instructions in how to move better using LED
lights and sensors. In this study, we affixed a small
microcontroller, 9-axis sensor, and LED light tape to a poleusing anchorages created by a 3D printer. We thendevised an algorithm that changes the color of the LED
depending on how the pole is moved, and we carried out
the operation in an experiment.

1. INTRODUCTION
Walking sticks and poles are widely used by thehandicapped elderly, and the optically challenged to assist
walking. In healthy subjects, poles are used to move thebody with more ease, such as in climbing and Nordic
walking. For example, different behaviors by skilled
persons and novices have been observed in themovements of their poles while climbing or Nordic
walking[1][2]. We consider that the poles can be able toperform instructions in how to move better using LEDs andsensors[3]. In this study, we affixed a small microcontroller,
9-axis sensor, and LED light tape onto a pole using
anchorages created by a 3D printer. We then devised analgorithm that changes the color of the LED depending on
how the pole is moving, and we carried out the experiment.

(a)

(b)

Fig.1 The appearance of the system. (a) The mobile
battery is attached to the top of the Nordic walking poles.
(b) Raspberry Pi Zero W, 9-axis sensor, and the LED
tape are attached under the mobile battery.

2. System
Figure 1 shows the system we developed that we
attached to a Nordic walking pole. Our system uses aRaspberry Pi Zero W microcomputer, LED tape (FLEXIAYN5050RGB-12), 9-axis sensor module (InvenSense
MPU-9250), a small mobile battery, and a portable Wi-Fi.
The system configuration is shown in Figure 2. It is
operable using only the power supplied from the mobilebattery. The mobile battery is confirmed for more than one
hour of operation. We designed the anchorages for thesystem components using 3D CAD and a 3D printer. The
anchorages can be used in correspondence with thevarious poles. The components are small enough so thesystem does not inhibit the movement of the pole. The

Fig.2 The system configuration.
The 9-axis sensor has the respectively three axes ofan acceleration, a gyro, and a geomagnetic sensor. We
attached the sensor to detect the direction of acceleration
X-axis that is moved back and forth by the pole, and thedirection of rotation of the gyro Z-axis that is shaken backand forth. The orientation of the pole is calculated fromgeomagnetic X-axis and Z-axis. Portable Wi-Fi is used toremotely control the Raspberry Pi through SSH from39

Proceedings of 1st International Symposium for Color Science and Art 2019
out this experiment in actual use situations, such as
Nordic walking.

external PC. A remote control is not required for the LED
and control of the sensor, because they are carried out in
the Raspberry Pi.
3. Experiments and Discussion
A beginner walker using the Nordic walking poleequipped with this system evaluated the sensor
information during walking. Figure 3 shows a graph of theoriginal acceleration X-axis of the pole (blue) and themoving average (orange) that was performed 10 times for
2 seconds at that time. The moment where the values in
the original acceleration jumped is when the pole poked on
the ground. It can be seen to have been performed oncein about 1 second. The fluctuation and instantaneous
poked noise in the original acceleration could be removed
by calculating a moving average of the 10 times. From thewalking data, the acceleration X-axis was found to havevalues from -1 g to 1 g after the moving average. Also, thegyro Z-axis showed a range from -30° to 30°. Furthermore,
the orientation of the user could be determined using an
inverse trigonometric function based on the results of thegeomagnetic X-axis and Z-axis.

Fig 4. The moment the pole flashed blue by moving it.

REFERENCES[1] Yuta Ogai, Yoshiya Mori, Masahiko Yamamoto,“Effects of indicating the features of the pole works inNordic walking”, 31st Proceedings of the Annual
Conference of JSAI (in Japanese) (2018)[2] Kenichi Sakaguchi, Kanako Nakayama, Yu Kudo, YutaOgai, Masahiko Yamamoto, “Measurement andevaluation of walking balance and landing strength onclimbing road”, JSME Symposium : Sports engineeringand Human Dynamics 2018 (in Japanese) (2018)[3] Yuta Ogai, Hiroto Akiyama, Kihiro Kawahara, Keisuke
Kojima, Daiki Tanaka, Kenishi Sakaguchi, Naoaki
Fujimoto, Masahiko Yamamoto, “Development of asystem to convey pole motion information by LED and9-axis sensor” [Translated from Japanese.],interaction2019 (23nd Symposium by Information
Processing Society of Japan) (in Japanese) (2019)

Fig 3. The graph of the original acceleration X-axis of thepole for 2 seconds (blue) and the moving average after
10 times (orange) in the beginner's Nordic walking.
Based on these results, Red LED deviates from 30% to100% by the value of the acceleration X-axis, Green LED
deviates in the same range by the gyro Z-axis, and BlueLED deviates by the orientation calculated from the valueof the geomagnetic X-axis and Z-axis. It was possible tochange the color of the LED based on the movement ofthe pole (Figure 4).
4. Conclusion
We developed a portable system to change the color of
the LED tape in accordance with the 9-axis sensor
information based on walking. In the future, we will carry40