Design of low cost smart insole for real time measurement of plantar pressure

Real time plantar pressure provides information critical to the understanding of gait mechanics and has a wide range of applications. In this study, smart insoles were designed and developed to measure real time foot plantar pressure. Key features of the insoles included cost-effectiveness, good working pressure detection range, wireless data transfer and real-time data analysis. Calibration of the sensing material was done and the resulting accuracy of the insoles was compared to that of a Kistler force plate, achieving an r2 value of 0.981. Real-time visualization of pressure mapping was incorporated to enable intuitive understanding of relative plantar pressure distribution.