Tibial bone forces can be monitored using shoe-worn wearable sensors during running

How Accurately Can Wearable Sensors Assess Low Back Disorder Risks during Material Handling? Exploring the Fundamental Capabilities and Limitations of Different Sensor Signals

“…Most notably, pressure insole measurement accuracy and precision are common challenges [ 34 ]. Previous work has explored a variety of ways to improve pressure insole force estimates through advanced calibration techniques and processing methods, such as using transfer functions [ 35 ], neural networks [ 36 ], or multistage linear regressions [ 27 ]. Nonetheless, there continues to be room for innovation and advances in pressure insole calibration and signal processing to further improve force estimation accuracy and precision.…”

“…Actual wearable signals (from real wearable sensors) are expected to exhibit noise, errors, or drift that are not present in these idealized signals, but these can be managed or calibrated. In our previous work using wearable pressure insoles and an IMU on the foot to estimate tibial bone force during running [ 27 ], we initially obtained poor results from real wearable sensors and default (manufacturer) calibrations. Had we stopped there, we would have concluded that a system comprising a pressure insole and IMU could not accurately estimate tibial bone force.…”

“…However, because we first analyzed idealized wearable sensor signals, we knew that the reason we were obtaining inaccurate results was not the combination of signals but rather the noise and variability in the real wearable sensor signals. We therefore created custom calibrations for the pressure insoles, which improved our estimation accuracy to a level close to that of idealized wearables [ 27 ] and ultimately led us to conclude that tibial bone forces can be monitored accurately using real, shoe-worn wearable sensors.…”

“…Using idealized wearable signals enabled us to address the questions outlined in the Introduction in the most fundamental and generalizable way, without being limited by the quality of existing wearable sensor hardware or their calibration methods, and without narrowly evaluating a single product. When using actual wearable sensors—specifically pressure insoles—task- and hardware-specific calibration methods are typically required to obtain accurate and reliable force estimates [ 27 ]. However, developing these calibrations is complex and time-consuming.…”

Per‐step and cumulative load at three common running injury locations: The effect of speed, surface gradient, and cadence

“…67 Recent developments in wearable technology to estimate tissue loading may overcome this limitation and allow load and damage estimation in-field. 68,69 A third limitation is that our relatively small sample size did not allow us to explore sex-specific effects that may occur due to biomechanical differences between males and females. 14,70 Nevertheless, we attempted to account for sex effects, for example by including a sexspecific patellofemoral contact area.…”