MPTrain: a mobile, music and physiology-based personal trainer

ABSTRACT

We present MPTrain, a mobile phone based system that takes advantage of the influence of music in exercise performance, enabling users to more easily achieve their exercise goals. MPTrain is designed as a mobile and personal system (hardware and software) that users wear while exercising (walking, jogging or running). MPTrain's hardware includes a set of physiological sensors wirelessly connected to a mobile phone carried by the user. MPTrain's software allows the user to enter a desired exercise pattern (in terms of desired heart-rate over time) and assists the user in achieving his/her exercising goals by: (1) constantly monitoring the user's physiology (heart-rate in number of beats per minute) and movement (speed in number of steps per minute); and (2) selecting and playing music with specific features that will encourage the user to speed up, slow down or keep the pace to be on track with his/her exercise goals.We describe the hardware and software components of the MPTrain system, and present some preliminary results when using MPTrain while jogging.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.2 Design Tools and Techniques
          Subjects: User interfaces

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.5 PATTERN RECOGNITION
      I.5.4 Applications

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.8 PERSONAL COMPUTING
      K.8.m Miscellaneous

General Terms:
Algorithms, Experimentation, Human Factors

Keywords:
adaptive mobile devices, automatic playlist generation, wearable physiological monitoring