Design a center of pressure measurement device into the insole

Abstract

The Center of pressure (COP) measurement is an important tool used for quantifying the dynamic properties of human’s balance and can be used to assess the risk of falling among elderly people. This paper presents a novel COP measurement device, based on three pressure sensors and double layer-designed insoles. Via a data acquisition (DAQ) device, the collected data can be remotely transmitted to wireless receiver Bluetooth. The aim of this study is to reduce hardware costs by using low-cost materials to gain the same results as the commercial portable COP measurement products. Experimental results show that the correlation coefficient of two systems is r=0.871±0.03 for the medio-lateral direction, and r=0.835±0.078 for the anterior-posterior direction. The results suggest that the design study delivers stable and reasonable results and that a low-cost pressure system is feasible.