%0 Journal Article
%T Design and Test of a Soft Plantar Force Measurement System for Gait Detection
%A Xuefeng Zhang
%A Yulong Zhao
%A Zhengyong Duan
%A Yan Liu
%J Sensors
%D 2012
%I MDPI AG
%R 10.3390/s121216628
%X This work describes a plantar force measurement system. The MEMS pressure sensor, as the key sensing element, is designed, fabricated and embedded into a flexible silicon oil-filled bladder made of silicon rubber to constitute a single sensing unit. A conditioning circuit is designed for signal processing and data acquisition. The characteristics of the plantar force sensing unit are investigated by both static and dynamic tests. A comparison of characteristics between the proposed plantar force sensing unit and a commercial flexible force sensor is presented. A practical experiment of plantar force measurement has been carried out to validate the system. The results demonstrate that the proposed measurement system has a potential for success in the application of plantar force measurement during normal gait.
%K MEMS
%K plantar force
%K gait detection
%K flexible£¿
%U http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/12/12/16628