Enabling Data Collection for Gait Analysis Using Floor Vibrations

As humans walk on structures, we interact with it by sending vibrations through it. The structure reacts based on the way that the human affects it and vice versa. As they walk, they send a certain type of vibrations into the floor. Those vibrations would be different if that same person was to run across the floor. One of the research tracks of the Structural Dynamics and Intelligent Infrastructure (SDII) Lab is to study the differences between the vibrations, and to find a way to differentiate between the vibrations caused by humans on structures: people running, walking, and falling. To do that, a controlled environment must be created to measure the vibrations and include the relevant metadata to describe the acceleration records. In addition, the usable life of the data will be short. A National Instruments data acquisition system is used to collect the data and a python code must be developed to collect and document the data. The code is to ask questions before the experiment and store the parameters, then collect the data through the data acquisition system, and then save them all into one file. It will not only make collecting and storing the data faster and easier, but it will allow for results to be shared easily with others. The code was published and can still be edited by people online, but it has accomplished its primary goal