Wearable biofeedback system to induce desired walking speed in overground gait training

Huanghe Zhang, Yefei Yin, Zhuo Chen, Yufeng Zhang, Ashwini K. Rao, Yi Guo, Damiano Zanotto

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

Biofeedback systems have been extensively used in walking exercises for gait improvement. Past research has focused on modulating the wearer’s cadence, gait variability, or symmetry, but none of the previous works has addressed the problem of inducing a desired walking speed in the wearer. In this paper, we present a new, minimally obtrusive wearable biofeedback system (WBS) that uses closed-loop vibrotactile control to elicit desired changes in the wearer’s walking speed, based on the predicted user response to anticipatory and delayed feedback. The performance of the proposed control was compared to conventional open-loop rhythmic vibrotactile stimulation with N = 10 healthy individuals who were asked to complete a set of walking tasks along an oval path. The closed-loop vibrotactile control consistently demonstrated better performance than the open-loop control in inducing desired changes in the wearer’s walking speed, both with constant and with time-varying target walking speeds. Neither open-loop nor closed-loop stimuli affected natural gait significantly, when the target walking speed was set to the individual’s preferred walking speed. Given the importance of walking speed as a summary indicator of health and physical performance, the closed-loop vibrotactile control can pave the way for new technology-enhanced protocols for gait rehabilitation.

Original languageEnglish
Article number4002
Pages (from-to)1-15
Number of pages15
JournalSensors (Switzerland)
Volume20
Issue number14
DOIs
StatePublished - 2 Jul 2020

Keywords

  • Closed-loop control
  • Instrumented footwear
  • Real-time gait parameter estimation
  • SportSole
  • Wearable biofeedback system

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