A New Automatic Foot Arch Index Measurement Method Based on a Flexible Membrane Pressure Sensor

• Main Authors: Tao Zheng, Zhiyong Yu, Jin Wang, Guodong Lu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-05-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: foot arch index; flexible membrane pressure sensor; plantar pressure; image processing; 8-neighborhood correlation pixel; row element association
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/10/2892

The foot arch index is an important index to evaluate the health of human feet and the biomechanics line, aiming at addressing the shortcomings of the low efficiency and slow speed of manual foot arch index measurement; in this work, an automatic foot arch index measurement method based on a flexible membrane pressure sensor was proposed. The distribution of plantar pressure data was obtained from the flexible membrane pressure sensor and converted into a digital image. The 8-neighborhood correlation pixel method was proposed to remove the interference of isolated noise points. In order to remove the toes’ data without affecting the foot sole data, the row element association algorithm was proposed. The front and back endpoints of the foot were automatically located to obtain the foot length, and the foot arch index was also automatically obtained based on the foot arch pressure area. Whether it was a high arch foot, flat foot or normal foot, the method proposed in this paper could accurately and quickly distinguish them. The prototype was developed, and its feasibility and validity were verified by a series of tests.