Abstract
This research presents a method of kinetic measurement of cycling motion by using a pedal-mounted instrument. In order to measure normal force and angular position of the pedals, a portable instrument was proposed, which consisted of a three-dimensional wireless inertial measurement unit (IMU) and a piezoelectric force sensor mounted on a pedal. The inertial sensor was also placed on the axis of ration of the crankshaft to evaluate crank angle. All data was transmitted to PC via Bluetooth. The pedal and crank angular positions were calculated from acceleration and angular velocities by IMU with Kalman filter. Potential usefulness was examined in our experiment with five healthy subjects in variation of the light, middle, medium, and heavy pedaling load with use of indoor bicycle trainer machine. The pedal angular position and pedaling force was successfully quantified simultaneously. The equipment is capable of attaching outside of normal bicycle pedal. This simple but effortless instrument may be helpful in kinetic analysis of cycling outside of laboratory.
