Portable shoe integrated instrumentation for gait analysis measurement using mems based devices

Abstract

Gait analysis measurement is a method to access and identify gait events and the measurements of dynamic and motion parameters involving the lower part of body. This significant method is widely used in sports, rehabilitation as well as the health diagnostic towards improving the quality of life. Many researchers has proposed various ways to access gait features that require specially set-up motion laboratories, high-end video based-motion imaging systems, and professionals to visually observe the gait, this makes current way of accessing gait to be very costly and limited in many ways. Therefore, this research focuses on design and development of a portable shoe integrated wireless MEMS-based and recent microelectronic based foot clearance measurement system that is cheap, portable, real life and can be used by more people. The foot clearance measurement is representing the measurement of the distance between foot and ground. A complete system called Portable Shoe Integrated Instrumentation for Gait Analysis Measurement Using MEMS Based Devices in realtime is proposed. This system is the combination of the ultrasonic sensor with the inertial measurement unit sensor. The ultrasonic sensor is used for clearance measurement and the inertial measurement unit sensor is used for orientation measurement. Based on the orientation measurement, the clearance measurement is corrected by trigonometry algorithm. The correction is due to the positioning of foot during landing phase and toe off phase. In both situations, the positioning of ultrasonic is not perpendicular to the ground. So, the algorithm is required to present the accurate data. This system comes with the custom design software called Gait Analysis Software to analyze and present the gait information of user based on gait parameters which include foot clearance and foot orientation. Thus, this research produces three custom made systems namely GAS-US System, GAS-IMU System and GAS-COM System. Each system has its own purpose. The system was tested and proven to satisfy the gait analysis requirement. From this research, it is found that the system is able to measure the gait parameter wirelessly with ease and efficiently. Hence, to conclude this system can be used as the best method for real life gait analysis measurement. The novelty of this research is the first design combination of ultrasonic sensor with the initial measurement unit sensor for foot clearance measurement.