FURI | Spring 2019

Detection of Heel-Off Initiation Based Correlation Between Ground Reaction Forces and Lower Extremity Surface Electromyography

The objective of this project was to identify heel-off and toe-off during gait based on the correlation between ground reaction forces (GRF) and surface electromyography (sEMG) of lower extremity muscles while quantifying the accuracy of smart shoes. The data was collected utilizing wireless sEMG sensors, force instrumented treadmill and novel smart shoes at three speeds ranging from 0.6 m/s to 1.0 m/s. Validation of smart shoes is vital to potentially making a marketable diagnostic device. The interaction between muscular activity, as a predictive input, and GRF provides greater accuracy when developing control algorithms for assistive devices.