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No Extra Sensors Needed : Estimating Vertical Ground Reaction Force Using Wearables Runners Already Use
Binnekamp, Marijn (2025) No Extra Sensors Needed : Estimating Vertical Ground Reaction Force Using Wearables Runners Already Use.
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| Abstract: | Understanding the factors contributing to running-related injuries is of high importance, as injuries are common among runners. Ground reaction forces (GRFs) are potentially useful in quantifying the biomechanical load during running, but can only be measured reliably in a gait laboratory using force plates. To study GRF continuously outdoors, wearable sensors such as inertial measurement units (IMUs) can be used. These IMUs are also present in smartwatches and advanced heart rate monitor belts. This study aimed to predict vertical GRF (vGRF) using IMUs positioned at the wrist and sternum, mimicking smartwatch and heart rate strap placement, combined with smartwatch-derived variables. Twelve rearfoot strike runners ran on a forceplate instrumented treadmill at four speeds (8, 10, 12, 14 km/h) and three cadences (preferred ± 10%) across twelve trials of 90 seconds. Participants wore IMUs on the wrist and sternum (capturing 3D accelerations and angular velocities) and pressure insoles, providing vGRF estimates, which were used for outdoor validation. Following indoor trials, participants performed four rounds on an athletics track at the same four speeds. A long short- term memory neural network was trained to predict vGRF using IMU signals and smartwatch-derived variables. Feature importance analysis revealed that the sternum IMU was the most informative predictor. Leave-one- subject-out cross-validation resulted in an RMSE of 0.10 ± 0.024 Body Weight. Outdoor validation using pressure insoles did not show significant differences in model performance between indoor and outdoor trials. These findings suggest that runners may not require additional sensors to continuously gain meaningful insights into their vertical ground reaction forces in an outdoor setting. |
| Item Type: | Student Thesis (Master) |
| Faculty: | EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science |
| Subject: | 50 technical science in general |
| Programme: | Biomedical Engineering MSc (66226) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/106648 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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