Gait Trial Lab
The Objective:
At the biomedical lab at Cal Poly there is a force-plate setup. It is designed to take in force and moment data as a person walks across it. There are also several camera's to pick up the motion of sensors placed along the leg of the test subject. During a lab section we had a classmate with a previous leg condition walk across the force-plate. The objective of the lab was to collect the forceplate data and kinematic data for the toe, ankle, knee, and hip and figure out the forces and moments that are experienced by the knee. The data was provided to us in a file that we needed to read into Matlab and then
process.
The deliverables included:
1. Create a stick figure animation of the lower body as you walk across the forceplate
2. Determine the knee joint angle as a function of time
3. Calculate force and moments at the knee
The Animation:
Using the data taken from the gait trail, we created an animation, in Matlab, of the leg walking across the plate from right to left. In the images above is a screen shot of the animation. The different colors determined different parts of the legs. The blue is the thigh, the red is the shin, and the yellow corresponded to the foot.
The Knee Angle:
To get a graph of the knee angle, we had to do research figuring out what that was. After some research, we found out that it is the angle from the thigh that the shin protrudes at. Once we found that out it was a simple task to create a program that would graph the knee angle for us using the data we had already obtained.
Forces and Moments in the Knee:
Using the collected data and dynamic calculations we were able to create a program in Matlab to give back the forces and moments in the knee. This is a significant development. Biomedical companies could use this information to create appropriate braces to help stabilize peoples needs. This was a huge realization, because I think this is the first project in which I realized that the projects I was doing in school directly apply to things I want to do in the industry.
At the biomedical lab at Cal Poly there is a force-plate setup. It is designed to take in force and moment data as a person walks across it. There are also several camera's to pick up the motion of sensors placed along the leg of the test subject. During a lab section we had a classmate with a previous leg condition walk across the force-plate. The objective of the lab was to collect the forceplate data and kinematic data for the toe, ankle, knee, and hip and figure out the forces and moments that are experienced by the knee. The data was provided to us in a file that we needed to read into Matlab and then
process.
The deliverables included:
1. Create a stick figure animation of the lower body as you walk across the forceplate
2. Determine the knee joint angle as a function of time
3. Calculate force and moments at the knee
The Animation:
Using the data taken from the gait trail, we created an animation, in Matlab, of the leg walking across the plate from right to left. In the images above is a screen shot of the animation. The different colors determined different parts of the legs. The blue is the thigh, the red is the shin, and the yellow corresponded to the foot.
The Knee Angle:
To get a graph of the knee angle, we had to do research figuring out what that was. After some research, we found out that it is the angle from the thigh that the shin protrudes at. Once we found that out it was a simple task to create a program that would graph the knee angle for us using the data we had already obtained.
Forces and Moments in the Knee:
Using the collected data and dynamic calculations we were able to create a program in Matlab to give back the forces and moments in the knee. This is a significant development. Biomedical companies could use this information to create appropriate braces to help stabilize peoples needs. This was a huge realization, because I think this is the first project in which I realized that the projects I was doing in school directly apply to things I want to do in the industry.
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