A novel wireless instrumented shoe for ground reaction forces analysis in humanoids

Abstract

The measurement of ground reaction forces (GRFs) is crucial in the biomechanical analysis of gait and other motor activities. Current humanoid robots mimic some of the biological adaptation methods found in humans. Therefore, studying the GRFs in these robots allows not only to improve their overall performance, but also to extrapolate possible techniques for human walking rehabilitation. The balance of a humanoid robot may be compromised when it walks and, even more, when it walks across multiple grounds with different frictions. This paper presents a system to be seamlessly installed on a walking humanoid robot to measure normal and tangential ground reaction forces. The proposed solution is a cost-effective, lightweight and wirelessly instrumented shoe (ITshoe) for real-time measuring of the GRFs.