Optical-Based Foot Plantar Pressure Measurement with Application in Human Postural Balance, Gait and Recognition Analysis

In this research, we purposed the design of real-time low-cost marker-free optical-based plantar-pressure measurement with application in human postural control, gait and recognition analysis. The system consists of a series of digital cameras capture installed underneath the acrylic-top platform. Light of LED strip mounted along the side of the acrylic plate deflected by the pressure exerted between the glossy white paper installed in the top of acrylic and the acrylic plate to the digital cameras provides the color-coded plantar pressure image of the subject standing on the platform. The system can provide both static features and dynamic features. Our hybrid system consists of a series of USB cameras aligned under the acrylic-plate walking platform. The mosaic image processing is used to concatenate the captured image to increase the sensing area. Captured the image data in video mode, various dynamic parameters can be derived for further dynamic analysis. The image capturing in one specific frame can be used for static analysis. Application in human-postural measurement, gait analysis, and person identification indicate that our system is an all-in-one system for plantar pressure measurement.