Development of a dynamic plantar pressures registration system

Abstract

It is well established that the quantification of the plantar pressure distribution provides valuable information about the structure and function of ankle and foot joints, which may be used as an important research and clinical tool in the analysis of human gait. Taking into account this background, the aim of this study was to optimize a prototype device for dynamic plantar pressure recording, previously developed suing an instrumented insole with piezoelectric sensors. Such optimization was related with digital processing of the acquired signals using numerical integration of the input signal, without using electrometric amplifier stage, which not only simplifies the hardware implemented, but also the steps required for static and dynamic calibrations. The obtained results were comparable to those achieved on the basis of the original device.