Efficient Acquisition of Force Data in Interactive Shoe Designs

A four-channel sensing system is proposed for the capture of force data from the feet during walking tasks. Developed for an instrumented shoe design prototype, the system solves general issues of latency of the response, accuracy of the data, and robustness of the transmission of digital signals to the host computer. Such issues are often left partially unanswered by solutions for which compactness, accessibility and cost are taken into primary consideration. By adopting widely used force sensing (Interlink) and analog-to-digital conversion and pre-processing (Arduino) components, the proposed system is expected to raise interest among interaction designers of interfaces, in which the reliable and sufficiently broadband acquisition of force signals is desired.