Soft Sensory Socks Measure Contact Forces During Locomotion

Gait monitoring systems play a crucial role in guiding rehabilitation, improving athletic performance, preventing injuries, and ensuring overall mobility and quality of life. Most of these systems are restricted to specialized setups and require calibrations. We propose a soft sensor design using silicone tubes mounted on the bottom side of socks to measure ground reaction force (GRF) during locomotion. Three sensors were mounted on the socks' anterior, lateral, and posterior areas on the left and right feet. The sensory socks enable the analysis of gait while walking and running at different speeds while wearing shoes and also barefoot. The proposed soft sensory socks open the door to analyzing locomotion in different environments and also barefoot. Preliminary gait analyses confirm the different gait parameters observed in the biomechanics of barefoot locomotion.