Ambulatory estimation of center of mass displacement during walking.

The center of mass (CoM) and the center of pressure (CoP) are two variables that are crucial in assessing energy expenditure and stability of human walking. The purpose of this study is to estimate the CoM displacement continuously using an ambulatory measurement system. The measurement system consists of instrumented shoes with 6 DOF force/moment sensors beneath the heels and the forefeet. Moreover, two inertial sensors are rigidly attached to the force/moment sensors for the estimation of position and orientation. The estimation of CoM displacement is achieved by fusing low-pass filtered CoP data with high-pass filtered double integrated CoM acceleration, both estimated using the instrumented shoes. Optimal cutoff frequencies for the low-pass and high-pass filters appeared to be 0.2 Hz for the horizontal direction and 0.5 Hz for the vertical direction. The CoM estimation using this ambulatory measurement system was compared to CoM estimation using an optical reference system based on the segmental kinematics method. The rms difference of each component of the CoM displacement averaged over a hundred trials obtained from seven stroke patients was ( 0.020 +/-0.007 ) m (mean +/- standard deviation) for the forward x-direction, ( 0.013 +/-0.005) m for the lateral y-direction, and ( 0.007 +/-0.001) m for the upward z-direction. Based on the results presented in this study, it is concluded that the instrumented shoe concept allows accurate and continuous estimation of CoM displacement under ambulatory conditions.