Analyzing the Use of Pressure Sensing Shoe Insoles for Biomechanical Research

The foot is an especially intricate piece of the already complex human body. In biomechanical research, gait is a popular research topic, but it is hard to demonstrate¬–or even understand–how the foot articulates. Motion capture is a common way to attempt to analyze how the foot works during gait. This method has shown major improvements in understanding the human foot, but has many limitations. There can be variation on where markers are placed, which lead to varying kinematics, which leads to inconsistent results. A pressure sensing insole could assist in understanding multi-segment foot kinematics. This would allow pressure mapping of the foot throughout the gait cycle. There are limited people and studies that have looked at pressure mapping of the foot through gait using insoles. In collaboration with a company called SensingTex out of Spain, I am experimenting with their product in development to analyze if it could be useful for future biomechanical research. This research will hopefully validate the device, and show it can accurately detect how people are distributing their weight across their foot. The ability to see how and where the pressure is being dispersed throughout the foot during gait can open a lot of doors and create many opportunities for other research moving forward. This research is a pilot study to analyze how the device works, and if it is a viable option for understanding multi-segment foot kinematics. Through initial testing, it was found that the sampling rate of the sensors is not fast enough to get an adequate number of samples during a foot strike. The next steps include increasing the sampling speed of the sensors, and continue testing to compare these data