Enhancing the Accuracy of Vertical Ground Reaction Force Measurement During Walking Using Pressure-Measuring Insoles

Abstract

Pressure-measuring insoles can be an attractive tool for measuring ground reaction force (GRF) since they are portable and can record multiple consecutive steps. Several researchers have, however, observed that these insoles are less accurate than instrumented force platforms. To address this issue, the authors identified transfer functions that best described each insole size to enhance the measurements of the vertical component of GRF during walking. GRF data were collected from 29 participants (6/23 male/female, 24.3 ± 6.7 yrs, 70.4 ± 23.9 kg, 1.66 ± 0.11 m) using Medilogic® pressure-measuring insoles and Kistler® force platforms for three walking trials. Participants provided the institutionally approved written consent (IRB #724468). The data from both instruments were preprocessed. A subset of the data was used to train the system identification toolbox (matlab) to identify the coefficients of several candidate transfer functions for each insole size. The resulting transfer functions were compared using all available data for each insole to assess which one modified the insole data to be closer to that of the force platform. All tested transfer functions moved the vertical component of GRF closer to the corresponding force platform data. Each insole size had a specific transfer model that that yielded the best results. Using system identification techniques produced transfer functions that, when using insole data of the vertical component of GRF as input, produced output that is comparable to the corresponding measurement using an instrumented force platform.