Ambulatory Estimation of Relative Foot Positions by Fusing Ultrasound and Inertial Sensor Data

Relative foot position estimation is important for rehabilitation, sports training and functional diagnostics. In this paper an extended Kalman filter fusing ultrasound range estimates and inertial sensors is described. With this filter several gait parameters can be estimated ambulatory. Step lengths and stride widths from 54 walking trials of three healthy subjects were estimated and compared to an optical reference. Mean ( ± standard deviation) of absolute difference was 1.7 cm ( ±1.8 cm) and 1.2 cm ( ±1.2 cm) for step length and stride width respectively. Walking with a turn and walking around in a square area were also investigated and resulted in mean absolute differences of 1.7 cm ( ±2.0 cm) and 1.5 cm ( ±1.5 cm) for step lengths and stride widths. In addition to these relative positions, velocities, orientations and stance and swing times can also be estimated. We conclude that the presented system is low-cost and provides a complete description of footstep kinematics and timing.