Abstract
A new instrumented-shoe has been designed for measuring independently and continuously three components of foot-to-ground forces without measuring the anterior-posterior (θYZ) and.medial-lateral (θXZ) angular motions of the lower leg relative to the floor surface during walking.A pair of force transducers are attached directly to a shoe sole at both the toe and heel to maintain the shoe's normal performance. The linearity and the reproducibility of the force transducer were tested by applying dead weight loads with variable load-acting angles to the transducer.The measurement error in each force component was better than ±3%/FS within the range of expected load-acting angles (0≤θYZ≤90°and|θXZ|≤14°). The output signals of the transducer remained unaffected by the point of application of the applied force. The dynamic characteristics were tested by comparing three comp onents of forces measured by the shoe mounted force transducers with those simultaneously recorded by a conventional force plate. A fairly good agreement between the pairs of simultaneous force recordings was obtained. The performance and the practical use of the instrumented-shoe were also evaluated through the force measurements over a variety of gait conditions including pathological gait. The instrumented-shoe is found to be accurate and useful enough in practice to be helpful to kinesiologists, rehabilitation engineers, and physical therapists in biomechanical gait studies.
