Towards energy-aware cloud-oriented cyber-physical therapy system

The Cyber-Physical System (CPS) is an emerging computing technology that involves in sensing, computing, controlling and communication between physical components (e.g., smart sensors, devices, systems and human beings) and cyber components (e.g., cloud and big data centers). The sensing, controlling and interaction have significant promises towards the realization of the current and future therapy system, where cloud resources and data centers are expected to process complex therapeutic heterogeneous big data. Although, the CPS has a great potential for such a sensing and controlling of therapy, however, energy efficiency is crucial for such a therapy system for its sustainability, especially for elderly people who cannot physically optimize energy consumptions. To this end, this article proposes an energy-aware cyber-physical therapy system (T-CPS), which incorporates smart things and devices in both the physical and cyber world for therapy sensing. To provide energy-efficient affordable therapeutic services, the T-CPS framework uses multi-modal sensing for the provision of therapy sensing, therapy playback, annotation, visualization, and energy efficiency. The framework was evaluated by real subjects along with several therapists. Test results show the usefulness of the proposed T-CPS framework.