Load carriage analysis for Malaysian military using functional data analysis technique: Trial experiment

We present a load carriage analysis for Malaysian soldier using functional data analysis (FDA) technique. The objectives of the study are to test the significance of curve registration in the analysis process flow and to investigate the effect of 10% load increment from 0% BW up to 40% BW on ground reaction force (GRF) for normal walking. Preliminary experiment on GRF was done using Vicon 1.4 motion analysis system, Kirstle and AMTI force plates and markers. Functional data analysis method was applied to analyze the data. B-spline smoothing, time normalization, landmark registration and permutation tests were performed. The result confirms that FDA is one of the best techniques in analyzing gait data. Curves registration can well distinguish the load increment and should be included in analysis sequences. The results show that 10 % BW load increment has significant effect on GRF for a Malaysian military.