Development of A Textile Capacitive Proximity Sensor and Gait Monitoring System for Smart Healthcare

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Wearable Technology
• Smart Healthcare

Background:

• Gait is crucial for daily life and health monitoring.
• Existing methods for gait analysis have limitations in accuracy and data provided.
• Smart healthcare solutions are needed for continuous health status assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a single-channel capacitive proximity pressure sensor (TCPS) system for gait monitoring.
• To assess the accuracy of the TCPS system in measuring step count and stride time.
• To validate the system's potential as a smart healthcare tool.

Main Methods:

• Designed an insole-type TCPS with a three-layer structure.
• Evaluated step count and stride time accuracy against multiple reference devices.
• Conducted experiments with 12 human subjects to assess system performance.

Main Results:

• The TCPS system demonstrated a low step count error rate of 1.77% (correlation coefficient: 0.958).
• Stride time measurement by TCPS showed a 1% error rate (correlation coefficient: 0.685).
• The proposed system outperformed reference devices in step count accuracy.

Conclusions:

• The developed TCPS system provides accurate gait analysis for step count and stride time.
• This technology shows promise for advancing smart healthcare through effective gait monitoring.
• The system offers a reliable and potentially cost-effective solution for health status assessment.