Experimental Investigation of a Smart Insole for Gait Analysis

Gait analysis has been uƟlized widely to detect and monitor various lower extremity musculoskeletal and neurological disorders. Monitoring the gait events can be performed with various mechanisms, specifically including wearable smart sensors without need to visit clinics and employ highly cost equipment. The lack of clinical portable analysis tools to collect and analyze the realisƟc paƟent’s daily acƟviƟes especially in diseases on elderly and Parkinson paƟents is one of the major concerns conducƟng research in this area. The main scope of this research is to present the design, and fabricaƟon of a novel smart insole for experimental invesƟgaƟon of human’s foot dynamic behavior during daily acƟviƟes. Performance and accuracy of the proposed system are evaluated experimentally employing staƟc and dynamic analysis uƟlizing clinical gate data. ComparaƟve analysis of the measured data obtained from the proposed insole prototype with the data collected through the Foot Checker indicates a moderate level of agreement, with differences of approximately 20% in both staƟc and dynamic analyses. These findings suggest that the compactly designed and economically fabricated prototype possesses sufficient diagnosƟc capabiliƟes to serve as a useful tool in the iniƟal stages of clinical assessment.