SportSole uses sensors and AI to analyse gait

Current gait analysis techniques generally require motion capture technology and force sensors, equipment not readily available outside laboratory settings. Although smart insoles and pods exists, they fail to match the accuracy of these laboratory methods. SportSole, developed at New Jersey’s Stevens Institute of Technology, is claimed to provide real-time data on the length, speed, and power of a wearer's stride with better accuracy than existing wearables, but at a much lower cost than gold-standard lab techniques.

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"We're now able to accurately analyse a person's gait in real time, in real-world environments,” said Damiano Zanotto, director of Stevens’ Wearable Robotic Systems Lab, and lead author of the study, which is published in IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering. "From a practical standpoint, that's invaluable."

SportSole uses accelerometers and gyroscopes to track its own movement and orientation, combined with an array of force sensors to detect plantar pressure. This allows it to capture 500 readings per second, which the researchers claim is a fivefold improvement over smart pedometers and other wearable gait-analysis tools.