Development of Rehabilitation System (ReHabgame) through Monte-Carlo Tree Search Algorithm
This is an incremental application of an existing algorithm to a domain-specific problem for rehabilitation patients.
The authors tackled post-stroke/brain injury upper limb rehabilitation by developing a serious game (ReHabgame) that uses Monte-Carlo Tree Search to personalize difficulty based on player movement data, resulting in effective progression from highly to less achievable paths.
Computational Intelligence (CI) in computer games plays an important role that could simulate various aspects of real-life problems. CI in real-time decision-making games can provide a platform for the examination of tree search algorithms. In this paper, we present a rehabilitation serious game (ReHabgame) in which the Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) algorithm is utilized. The game is designed to combat the physical impairment of post-stroke/brain injury casualties in order to improve upper limb movement. Through the process of ReHabgame the player chooses paths via upper limb according to his/her movement ability to reach virtual goal objects. The system adjusts the difficulty level of the game based on the player's quality of activity through MCTS. It learns from the movements made by a player and generates further subsequent objects for collection. The system collects orientation, muscle and joint activity data and utilizes them to make decisions. Players data are collected through Kinect Xbox One and Myo Armband. The results show the effectiveness of the MCTS in the ReHabgame that progresses from highly achievable paths to the less achievable ones, thus configuring and personalizing the rehabilitation process.