| Group |
2021-28 |
Status |
completed |
| Title |
Smart Shoe System |
| Supervisor |
Glenn Cowan |
| Description |
Electronics products have revolutionized high-performance training techniques across many sports. For example, chest-strap equipped and now wrist-based heart-rate monitors are standard equipment across most endurance sports, setting training zones and providing a measurement of recovery time. More recently, power meters have greatly influenced cycling both in terms of training and racing (i.e., pacing). Developing athletes know quantitatively how much they must improve before reaching elite-level fitness.
To allow runners and coaches to study running gait and how it varies with terrain and fatigue, a smart-shoe system is required. This system will measure centre-of-pressure during the gait cycle, ground contact time and other biomechanically relevant parameters. The system will also measure surface EMG signals through the use of time recently developed IC, designed in Cowan’s research group. Ideally, these chips will be embedded in clothing such as compression socks or shorts.
The group will determine the required data signals, their sampling rates and a means to synchronize left-side/right-side and possibly centre of mass measurements in order to allow the app your groups develops to log and process data.
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| Requirement |
Microcontrollers, pressure sensors, instrumentation amplifiers, analog-to-digital converters, use of Bluetooth or similar protocol to get data from the equipment to the phone
App development to generate a rudimentary app for a smart phone
Knowledge of free-body diagrams and willingness to extend 1D concepts to 3D.
Interest in sports generally or running/cycling specifically is an asset
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| Tools |
Building PCBs, soldering, design of the enclosures, LTSpice for some circuit simulation |
| Number of Students |
6 |
| Students |
Kelvin Juezan, Xignze Li, Charles Chochos, Serge Nassour, Sandra Umurerwa |
| Comments: |
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