Stride Counting in Human Walking and Walking Distance Estimation Using Insole Sensors

This paper proposes a novel method of estimating walking distance based on a precise counting of walking strides using insole sensors. We use an inertial triaxial accelerometer and eight pressure sensors installed in the insole of a shoe to record walkers' movement data. The data is then transmitted to a smartphone to filter out noise and determine stance and swing phases. Based on phase information, we count the number of strides traveled and estimate the movement distance. To evaluate the accuracy of the proposed method, we created two walking databases on seven healthy participants and tested the proposed method. The first database, which is called the short distance database, consists of collected data from all seven healthy subjects walking on a 16 m distance. The second one, named the long distance database, is constructed from walking data of three healthy subjects who have participated in the short database for an 89 m distance. The experimental results show that the proposed method performs walking distance estimation accurately with the mean error rates of 4.8% and 3.1% for the short and long distance databases, respectively. Moreover, the maximum difference of the swing phase determination with respect to time is 0.08 s and 0.06 s for starting and stopping points of swing phases, respectively. Therefore, the stride counting method provides a highly precise result when subjects walk.