A Compact Wearable Sensor Package for Clinical Gait Monitoring

We have developed a compact, wireless, wearable, shoe-mounted sensor package that is designed to provide continuous and real-time monitoring of gait for clinical biomotion analysis. This paper discusses the initial design of our hardware, consisting of a sensor-laden insole and a removable instrumented shoe attachment. Information about the three-dimensional motion, relative position, and pressure distribution of the foot is provided with real-time and wireless transmission of the data from the instrumented shoe attachment to a receiver connected to a nearby laptop or wearable PDA platform. Initial data collection demonstrates the capability of the sensor system to detect different types of gait.