Hardware and Software for Solving the Serious Game Challenge Using Commercial Off-the-Shelf Components and Open Source Software Frameworks

The purpose of this book chapter is to show how to solve the problem of selection of an appropriate hardware and software. This is a challenge for any non-standardized application domain and a problem any research project has when looking for a general purpose solution for a specific problem. Here we target the evaluation of a Reference Rehabilitation Platform (RRP) for Serious Games. One constraint in such a case is that all components should be commercial off-the-shelf during the runtime of the project. Components should be well tested, provide sufficient firmware and documentation for integration and have the potential of becoming a kind of standard in the market. This is essential, as the focus of any such project is the problem solution and its evaluation of the hardware and software. We propose a platform where different Serious Games can be deployed and input devices as bio sensors can be plugged in easily. We developed a solution where these components can be replaced by new components easily without changing the whole architecture. This book chapter addresses technical issues and provides an idea how to integrate Serious Games for rehabilitation purposes as described in the chapter four.