TremorPause: A Wearable Inertial Hand Tremor Evaluation and Suppression System

Overview

Pathological hand tremors affect 5% of the world population, yet diagnosis remains a subjective 0-4 visual score, and treatments are dangerous (Beta-Blockers), ineffective (orthotics), or expensive (Deep Brain Stimulation, $30k-$80k). TremorPause is a low-cost (~$440) and long-lasting (~2 hr.) wearable that quantifiably evaluates and suppresses hand tremors. To evaluate motion, an Arduino-BLE glove collected IMU data from 60 participants. A Fast Fourier Transform pipeline distilled 2.3 million raw angular velocity data points into 24,000 feature vectors. To isolate tremors from voluntary motion, a Random Forest AI was augmented with a Sigmoid-weighting function, centered at Youden’s J-Index, improving classification accuracy from 28.3% to 96.7% (p<0.001, AUC=0.89). This produces Severity, a novel 0-100% quantitative metric. Statistical analysis revealed the effects of motion consciousness: when participants focused, tremors worsened; when they didn’t, shaking decreased. For suppression, a brushless motor system inertially generates velocity-dependent counter-torques opposing hand oscillations, stabilizing the hand. Preliminary 2-participant hardware testing demonstrated a 49.8% tremor reduction. Despite small sample size, it is consistent with the theoretical physics prediction of 56.6%. The TremorPause mobile app provides users a clinician-free 0-100% severity score, the world's first quantitative tremor assessment anyone can self-administer anywhere. Users can upload their anonymous results to a global Firebase dataset on which the AI continuously trains. Where current studies average ~43 participants, TremorPause is positioned to become the largest in the field, and the only system that gets measurably smarter every time someone uses it, at zero additional cost.

Awards (3)

• Third Award of $1,200 $1,200
• International Council on Systems Engineering - INCOSE: Second Place INCOSE Best Use of System Engineering Award of $800, a 1-year free student membership to INCOSE, and free virtual admission to this year's International Symposium of the INCOSE $800
• International Council on Systems Engineering - INCOSE: DO NOT READ ALOUD: The Second Place INCOSE Best Use of Systems Engineering Award winner and the INCOSE Bill Ewald Socio-Technical Systems Engineering Award winner will receive a 1-year free student membership to the INCOSE and free virtual admission to the 2024 International Symposium of the INCOSE

Competition history

• ISEF 2026 Biomedical Engineering · Entry ENBM083 Affiliated fair in PA, United States of America

Resources

• ISEF abstract page ↗

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