Experimental research on human gait measurement

The knowledge of human gait plays an important role in the equilibrium control during walking. The study of the human gait has an important science significance and applied value in the fields of medical treatment, physical training, rehabilitation, man-machine engineering and so on. This paper illustrates a joint measurement system based on the motion image gathering system and the angular measuring instrument. The image measurement system gathers and recognizes the markers on the waist, hip as well as knee, while the angular measuring instrument measures the relative angle of various joints. In the experiment, the system measures the trajectory of joints and the angular displacements during the subject walking on the treadmill and we use the method of data fusion to deal with the results. The system software is based on Visual C++6.0 and Matlab/Simulink, which analysis the data and obtain the parameters of human gait. Presented data suggest that this method can be easy to realize gait-measurement.

I. Introduction

Walking is one of the human basic movements. The gait can be divided into different types. Human body physiological function, mechanics of Pathology and even various changes of mental state all will influence on the human gait in varying degrees. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the motion state of human walking, stress state and the physical quantities related to biomechanics, and further analyze the stress state of every segment (especially the joint) as well as mechanical work, energy metabolism and so on. The gait analysis has already been one of the indispensable means in the basic and the clinical research and has special value in the fields of anthropology, astronavigation sports science and so on.