On the Development of the Optical Measurement System for Plantar Pressure and Arch Index

• Main Authors: Tse-Hsiang Wang, 王則翔
• Other Authors: 張培仁
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/93762660275742301785

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 應用力學研究所 === 103 === The Plantar pressure and arch index of patient for pathological analysis is an important issue in biomechanical field. The results can be used for preventing and treating some diseases like diabetes and paralysis. There were some used plantar pressure measurement methods in clinical research. Harris foot mat use rubber cushion to measure subject’s plantar pressure. Another method adopted electrical pressure sensors to measure the plantar pressure through the changes of electrical resistance and capacitance. In addition, optical system used photo or plastic sensing units to measure plantar pressure. Although the cost of optical measurement system was cheaper than the electric system, the capability of optical system for measuring pressure values performed worse than electric ones. Besides, the present optical system needs auxiliary structure to measure plantar pressure. This study tried to use gray level analysis to build a new system to improve the defect of measuring pressure values, and simplify process of system. This work develops a new optical plantar pressure and arch index measurement system. Instead of the existing photo or plastic sensing units, the present system uses digital optical camera to capture the color change of bare foot standing. Use gray level transformation and image-processing techniques to establish a correlation relation between the plantar pressure and gray level. Furthermore, measuring the divided region surface of foot can easily get arch index. We can measure the pressure distribution, arch index, length, and width of foot through our system. The simple composition of system and interface can help operators to get plantar information of users more convenient than other used methods. Besides, the data measured by this system can be conserved though data base of users and could be applied for foot disease prevention in the future.