Development of Software for Comprehensive Analyses of Force Plate Measurements: Technical Note

This technical note summarizes the development of a software solution aimed at data acquisition and analyses and results reporting on the tests performed on a force plate. In the introduction, the history of force plate development is reviewed, followed by a description of the process of ground reaction force measurement data acquisition and parameterization. The second part is a short description of five groups of the force plate based tests used to evaluate human movement: (i) static balance, (ii) dynamic balance, (iii) locomotion and body transfer, (iv) fast alternating movements, and (v) strength and power tests. This is followed by the main part in which we present a technical solution, describe the software’s conceptual structure by test modules, point out the most important functions and graphically present a concise overview of the tests that the software is designed to handle. We conclude with ideas for further development and future directions.