Wearable Devices for Gait Measurement - A Case for Textile-Based Devices

Abstract

Wearable devices for gait measurement are devices worn on the body to measure the gait of the wearers. During gait measurement, several parameters are measured and the choice of parameters is influenced by the application and by extension the gait index. Two approaches have been adopted in this research. One is the provision of an overview of wearable devices for gait measurement with a bias towards textile-based “soft” smart wearable systems using information from varied academic sources and databases. The second approach is to map out key scientific research trends within the wearable device classes using the Web of Science database. The focus is to make a case for textile-based gait measurement devices and systems while exploring the key determinants of wearable gait sensor placements and application efficiency. These soft smart wearable systems describe flexible material sensor-based systems which have their sensing mechanisms based on material deformation after being subjected to stress or pressure. This study could therefore serve as an apt reference for the development of soft smart wearable gait measurement systems as it throws light on the various soft wearable gait measurement applications, the bottlenecks in soft wearable device design, opportunities for developing new devices and the merit that soft gait analysis systems possess over their hard gait measurement counterparts.

Keywords

• wearable devices
• electronic textiles
• smart textiles
• soft sensors
• piezoresistance
• gait measurement