Design of a Highly Sensitive, Low-cost Underwater Force Plate to Record Substrate Reaction Forces

The study of underwater walking presents major challenges because the small forces applied during underwater walking are difficult to measure due to the lack of a sufficiently sensitive force plate that functions underwater. Understanding the force interaction between the underwater walker and the substrate may lead to better understanding of the evolution, ecology, and biomechanics of underwater walking. The shift from aquatic to terrestrial life was a crucial transition in animal evolution where, underwater walking preceded the invasion of land and combines mechanics from terrestrial locomotion (substrate reaction forces) and aquatic swimming (buoyancy and drag). In this work, we describe our design of a low-cost underwater force plate made using 3D printed multi axis load cells equipped with commercial strain gauges amplified with a custom circuit board, and custom code to gather force data. The use of 3D printed sensors allows customization of the material and thickness of the shear beam load cell to accommodate the loads for a wide range of study species. We show that our design can detect loads as small as 1mN (filtered) with minimal noise and present sample live animal trials of several species. The 3D multiaxial load cells, circuit design, and custom code are open-source and available online.