Soft, orthotic-style wearable gait monitoring system integrating flexible liquid-metal pressure sensors within conformal plantar sleeves to enable high-resolution measurement of foot loading, center-of-pressure transitions, and dynamic biomechanics during real-world ambulation. The platform demonstrates fully integrated sensor fabrication, distributed plantar placement within soft orthotic structures, and on-body deployment with embedded power and electronics retention for continuous mobile gait analytics across clinical, performance, and operational environments.
This research program focuses on developing conformal, soft, wearable gait-monitoring technologies for continuous biomechanical assessment in real-world environments. Conventional gait analysis systems are typically limited to rigid pressure insoles or laboratory-bound motion capture infrastructure, which restricts scalability, introduces user discomfort, and limits deployment in operational settings.
To address these limitations, the Optical Bio-Sensing Laboratory (OBSL) has developed a flexible gait-sensing platform based on liquid-metal pressure-sensing architectures embedded in soft polymer substrates. The system enables high-resolution monitoring of plantar pressure distributions, center-of-pressure dynamics, and locomotion symmetry without reliance on rigid footwear-dependent instrumentation. Mechanical deformation of elastomer-encapsulated eutectic gallium–indium (EGaIn) microchannels produces predictable resistance modulation, enabling robust pressure sensing under dynamic loading conditions.
The wearable architecture integrates forefoot and heel sensing modules into a conformal, orthotic-style platform supported by modular retention systems, enabling deployment across diverse subject populations without custom fabrication. This design enables scalable implementation in clinical, operational, and remote monitoring environments.
Beyond laboratory biomechanics research, this technology is being developed for translational deployment in large-scale human performance screening and monitoring programs. Potential applications include integration into military and government processing environments such as Military Entrance Processing Stations (MEPS) to establish baseline musculoskeletal performance metrics, detect asymmetries or mobility limitations, and support longitudinal readiness tracking across service lifecycles. Similar frameworks may support workforce physical screening, injury prevention programs, rehabilitation monitoring, and population-level mobility analytics.
As part of OBSL’s broader mission in wearable physiological monitoring and translational biomedical engineering, this platform offers a scalable approach to real-world locomotion sensing, bridging laboratory biomechanics research and deployable human performance technologies.
This research area focuses on developing watchband-based wearable platforms for continuous, noninvasive blood pressure monitoring using advanced arterial pressure-wave sensing techniques. These systems are designed to enable cuffless blood pressure estimation under both static and dynamic conditions, supporting long-term cardiovascular monitoring outside traditional clinical environments.