A Mobile Gait Training System Providing an Active Interaction

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this paper, the authors have proposed a mobile gait training system that provides virtual guidance to the trainee. The proposed interactive system to guide the trainee is explained in detail, and the results have proven the system's performance. An interactive gait guidance system will be beneficial in training to improve the walking gait of the patients. I have some minor comments related to the paper.

Abstract: 

Please describe the problem and its importance. Why is an interactive training system required?

Introduction 

Classify the existing methods into some categories. Define various attributes and compare the existing methods in terms of those attributes. 

Summarize the limitations in existing methods highlighted and how your solution will address the shortcomings. Also, describe how your new system differs from your previous proposed system mentioned in reference 19.

Proposed Methodology

Please describe the methodology with a figure (block diagram); each block must be appropriately explained in the text. 

Abbreviations like 2D-LiDAR should be defined first.

Line 105: If the surface has some background objects near the trainee's feet, then how to ignore these objects? Is there any limitation of this procedure related to the environment?

Demographic data of the subjects are not given. In my view system must be tested on more subjects to verify its effectiveness of the system.

Experiments

To verify the foot recognition rate, is there any other method used as the gold standard to compare the accuracy of the 2D-LiDAR system?

Line 284: what is the system's performance on different gait speeds? 

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this paper, the authors propose a mobile gait training system that allows learners to actively interact with its content. It is a new system that combines a mobile robot with virtual reality; it can adapt to the person, projecting virtual content for gait training on actual ground. It does not necessarily involve walking on a treadmill, like other systems.

Overall, the article is well structured and well written. The authors did a interesting job presenting the tool.

The introduction is suitable, but can be improved with some important current references. The system is described in section 2 and the experiment on foot recognition and usability of the system is carried out in section 3. The data and results are presented in an appropriate way. However, there are some aspects to improve:

Very few subjects were enrolled in the study without the authors justifying the small size of their sample.

Although mentioned in the limitations, including only healthy subjects could render the system useless for people with gait disorders, given the large variability of gait and balance disorders. It would be appropriate to include, in addition to a larger sample, subjects with different balance and gait disorders.

We also note the use of non-validated questionnaires to carry out certain measures of interest in the study.

 

The authors quickly review the results and do not include a discussion section in which to compare the results obtained with other studies with similar systems for gait training. It would be interesting for the authors to report in detail on this matter.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf