Real-time gait phase detection using wearable sensors

Intelligent assistive devices using powered actuators are used to restore the gait patterns of amputees or patients with lower limb pathologies. These devices use feedback systems to drive actuators accurately at the right instances during gait. As such, information about gait phases in real-time is necessary to diagnose and/or to provide feedback to assistive devices. This paper presents a method to detect the gait phases in real-time using minimal hardware. A flex sensor that was mounted on a leather shoe was used to accurately measure the ankle angles as well as for the detection of the initial contact and toe-off events during a gait cycle. The data was sent to the software via serial interface and plotted to validate the results-which shows that the technique is feasible to be employed as an integral part of a feedback control system for a powered assistive device.