Gait phase and centre of pressure measuring system

• Published in: 2nd IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics, 2004. INDIN '04. 2004 pp. 331 - 334
• Main Authors: Surdilovic, D., Jinyu, Z., Bernhardt, R.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2004
• Subjects: Footwear; Force measurement; Force sensors; Humans; Leg; Legged locomotion; Phase measurement; Pressure measurement; Resistors; Robot sensing systems
• ISBN: 0780385136; 9780780385139
• DOI: 10.1109/INDIN.2004.1417355

For the development of biped robot and artificial limb as well as for the rehabilitation of patients whose legs are injured or have difficulty in movement, a gait phase online identification and calculation of centre of pressure (CoP) system is researched. In previous researches, the force sensitive resistors were fit inside of the shoes, which were called sole sensors. However according to our own experiments, this is not effective method for the identification of the gait phase because there is a relative movement between the foot and shoe if the shoes aren't adequately adapted to the feet. In our research the force sensors are installed on exsole instead of on the insole, which cause the readings to accurately correspond with the physical information of human. 4 pieces of force sensitive resistors, one piece of position sensor and a fibre sensor that is for the measuring of the bend of the legs are used. The 5 normal gait phases such as stance, stance-kneebend, heel-off, swing-bend, swing-extend heel-strike and 4 irregularities such as stance-external-tip over, stance-internal-tip over, forward tipping over, etc. can be identified with a combination's of sensors. CoP can be also calculated in real-time. The identification is independent from the order of the walking. The reliability of the results is 100% attainable. The first gait phase is also identifiable. Additionally, whether human walks fast or quite slowly doesn't influence to the identification result. The system self-calibration is carried out at the beginning of running. It is therefore ensured that the system measurement is 100% identical in relation to the walking of people