NIT Rourkela Develops Indigenous Force Plate For Gait Profiling

Researchers at the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela, have developed a low-cost indigenous force plate for measuring multi-axial ground reaction forces (GRF) to help in gait profiling, according to officials.

- Press Trust Of India

Force plates are globally recognised as essential diagnostic tools for analysing human musculoskeletal health. Due to high costs and the lack of Indian manufacturers, its availability in India remains limited.

Gait profiling is a method of evaluating an individual's walking pattern by comparing their unique gait to a reference dataset of healthy individuals’ gait patterns.

The new device from NIT Rourkela can be supplied at one-fourth the price of international systems, making it an affordable alternative, they added.

A patent has been filed for the product and the research has been published in the Journal of Mechanics in Medicine and Biology.

The research team used the indigenously developed force plate along with the motion capture system to evaluate the heel pad stiffness in a noninvasive technique. By studying how the heel pad, the natural cushion of the foot, behaves in people with different body weights, the team has taken a step closer to developing better footwear and treatment strategies to reduce heel pain.