Plastic Optical Fiber Integrated With Smartphone for Gait Monitoring

Correctly identifying gait patterns and measuring characteristics like stride frequency, step count, gait phase, and plantar pressure in gait are essential for disease assessment and effective rehabilitation. This article demonstrates a portable optical sensor for human gait monitoring. The device is based on a smartphone integrated with plastic optical fiber (POF) as a sensor for gait monitoring. The monitoring of multiple sensors by a smartphone is achieved by image segmentation based on Voronoi tessellation. With the sensor, experimental tests following different gait patterns were carried out. In order to obtain valuable information on gait parameters, such as step count, stride frequency, gait stages, and pressure at different plantar regions, the signal is processed using FFT analysis and analyzed in both the time and frequency domains. Compared to real values, the deviation in the estimated steps is found to be around 3.4%, with a distribution of step frequency between 0.6 and 1.4 Hz. Because of its low cost, noninvasiveness, and portability, this innovative sensor can be used in a variety of applications such as motion feedback, geriatric health monitoring, etc., and is of great promotional significance.