Tiltable platform with camera system for animal movement measurement

In order to investigate the process of capturing and processing stimuli acting on the body of animals, we developed a special tiltable platform of smaller dimensions, which serves to measure the movements of the bodies of small animals. Our research implementation works with 3 cameras, 3 actuators, 3D motion rotary control and image processing software and kinematics and motion dynamics control.

We tested the system when measuring dynamic postulography. This is a method introduced in medical practice based on monitoring and evaluating body segment motion on a moving platform to study the function of the nervous system, the vestibular system or the musculoskeletal system.

Project goal – to create an original frame of mechatronic system

Our original frame of the mechatronic system enables the successful recording of the angles of orientation of the body segments (of small animals) in the anatomical levels, to the programmed movements of the platform in the Earth’s coordinate system.

We have achieved this by firmly placing the camera system on a movable platform, which is located on a joint made up of three motors. A small animal placed in the focus of the cameras and centre of the platform is marked by contrast points, exposed to sequences of motion and scanned by 3 cameras. The platform is controlled by the 1st computer and through cameras the 2nd computer records the movement. The SW solves synchronization of motion and video sequence data and normalizes the data so that it can be processed analytically later on.