Proposal of a short step and stride measurement system for uncontrolled environments

Abstract

This paper presents a proposal of a measurement system that will permit to quantify two gait parameters: short step and stride, within uncontrolled environments. The short step and the stride are two important parameters in the gait analysis that usually are measured in a specialized laboratory, but this measurement can be done in uncontrolled environments where the patient would be more comfortable. In order to calculate the gait parameters without a complex setup, to use an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) is proposed, because it is a small and portable sensor, and provides linear acceleration data. These data are adjusted to offset the gravitational forces, and, in further research, they are going to be used to calculate the short step and stride.