Development of heart rate regulator system for exercise bikes
Abstract
Inactivity is considered to be pandemic and the societal costs are huge and rising. One highly efficient way of combating inactivity is by doing high intensity interval training. This however has shown to be a challenging exercise, specially for elderly and people not used to working out. By actively controlling the resistance on an exercise bike, it is possible to control a person s heart rate, and thereby guide the user to perform workouts correctly, and also more comfortably.
The concept of heart rate regulation has previously been investigated for exercise bikes and treadmills as well as by smartphone based guiding. However, none of the previous identified works have been commercialized. For a solution to be commercially viable, it will have to meet requirements from several standpoints e.g. production cost, reliability, user friendliness, user comfort, ease of administration, adaptability for different user segments as well as individual changes over time.