What if shoe insoles could do more than support your feet?
Picture insoles that monitor health, improve workouts or help doctors treat injuries. A team of researchers in the UK is looking to make smart insole systems a reality.
In particular, the system can accurately measure the body’s interaction with the ground, opening new possibilities in sports science and healthcare by estimating what is known as ground reaction forces (GRFs).
Accurately measuring movement patterns has always been important for specialists in sports science and medical professionals. However, traditional methods have struggled to meet the real-world demands.
“Traditional tools like force plates or treadmills are expensive, bulky, restricted to lab environments and may disrupt natural gait patterns,” said one of the researchers behind the study, Dinghuang Zhang.
“We wanted to create an affordable and portable alternative that people could easily integrate into their daily lives. If an insole-based system can provide similar results to force plates, it represents not only a major breakthrough for the force plate industry but also a game-changer for healthcare, sports science, and rehabilitation, making advanced motion analysis available to everyone, anywhere.”
The scientists created the TG0 smart insole, which captures movement information such as the pressure distribution under different parts of the foot, while the built-in inertial measurement unit (IMU) provides precise motion tracking.
“This combination makes it an exceptionally versatile data acquisition platform, not only for supporting research but also for practical applications in healthcare, rehabilitation and sports science,” said Liucheng Guo, the project lead and CTO of TG0.
Using the data from the smart insole with artificial intelligence, the researchers were able to get accurate results both reliably and affordably.
“This opens up exciting opportunities,” Guo said.
“Athletes can easily analyze their sports performance, reduce injury risks, and optimize their training.”
