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Comparison of Gait Parameters
using the Proposed System
and Commercial Systems
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, we proposed a full-body wearable
wireless UWB human locomotion tracking system
with high ranging and positioning accuracies. The
proposed system is capable of achieving a ranging
accuracy that is ten times better than the ranging
accuracy provided by the commercially available
systems. Results showed that the proposed system
is a promising solution for providing accurate
measurements of important clinical parameters,
such as the BOS, which is known to be insuf-
ficiently accurate when measured using current
technologies. In particular, the proposed system is
capable of providing a ranging accuracy of 1 mm
for inter-segmental distance measurements, which
exceeds the accuracy of current technologies. The
proposed system is also capable of providing a
high localization accuracy, which also exceeds the
accuracy provided by current locomotion tracking
systems. In addition, this system can take both
indoor and outdoor measurements, which is suit-
able for the long-term monitoring and assessment
of mobility diseases.
In order to achieve the ultimate goals of this
system, there have been multiple challenges that
have been handled. Mainly, the system perfor-
mance and the overall power consumption of the
system needed to be investigated. Moreover, the
proposed system did not only need to provide ac-
curate ranging and localization accuracies, but also
needed to provide accurate motion capture data in
a sense that does not affect or alter the measured
motion data. This goal is absolutely dependent
upon the nature of human locomotion, and the
dynamics of human movement. Essentially, the
specific acquired parameters, either kinematics
or kinetics, and their measurement requirements
as dictated by clinical gait analysis, are the main
controllers of this task. The investigation of the
available ranging and localization techniques as
well as the proposal of new techniques has been
considered. Also, low-power alternatives have
This sub-section gives results for some gait pa-
rameters of the proposed system using simulation.
Moreover, it compares these parameters for the
proposed system and commercial gait analysis
system (accurate commercial optical tracking
system) based on real-data captured using the com-
mercial system. In order to examine and compare
the ranging accuracy of the proposed system to
the commercial system for actual gait parameters,
particularly for the BOS distance parameter, a mo-
tion capture data file representing normal walking
movement was obtained from (Vaughan 1999;
CMU 2010; ISB 2010). This file was processed
to extract the raw-marker data, and estimate the
heel-to-heel distance. The data was then used in
a simulation which mimicked the heel-to-heel
measurement. The simulated results (along with
the actual distances) are plotted for multiple gait
cycles in Figure 7(a), and the simulated results for
the proposed system and the actual distances are
plotted for multiple gait cycles in Figure 7(b). As
can be seen, the proposed system shows a clear
advantage over the commercial system.
FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
The work presented in this chapter included the
design and analysis of the components associated
with the proposed system. The natural next phase
of this project would be the implementation of
the proposed system. The implementation would
essentially include the choice of the most suitable
implementation technology. Other low-power
alternatives could also be developed for further
power consumption reduction. Furthermore, a
detailed study of the MAC layer design would
also be required.
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