Wearable Triboelectric Sensors Enabled Gait Analysis and Waist Motion Capture for IoT‐Based Smart Healthcare Applications

TLDR

Gait and waist motions contain personal data that can be captured by wearable triboelectric sensors for identification and healthcare via IoT, addressing the need for cost‑effective human‑machine interfaces in long‑term rehabilitation. The study introduces wearable TENG devices for gait analysis and waist motion capture to enhance lower‑limb and waist rehabilitation. Four waist‑sensing TENGs sewn into a belt enable real‑time robotic manipulation and immersive gaming, while an insole with two TENGs detects walking status and achieves 98.4 % accuracy in identifying five subjects for personalized rehab plans using machine learning. The integrated sensory system demonstrates effective user recognition, motion monitoring, and robot‑ and game‑assisted training, indicating its promise for IoT‑based smart healthcare.

Abstract

Gait and waist motions always contain massive personnel information and it is feasible to extract these data via wearable electronics for identification and healthcare based on the Internet of Things (IoT). There also remains a demand to develop a cost-effective human-machine interface to enhance the immersion during the long-term rehabilitation. Meanwhile, triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) revealing its merits in both wearable electronics and IoT tends to be a possible solution. Herein, the authors present wearable TENG-based devices for gait analysis and waist motion capture to enhance the intelligence and performance of the lower-limb and waist rehabilitation. Four triboelectric sensors are equidistantly sewed onto a fabric belt to recognize the waist motion, enabling the real-time robotic manipulation and virtual game for immersion-enhanced waist training. The insole equipped with two TENG sensors is designed for walking status detection and a 98.4% identification accuracy for five different humans aiming at rehabilitation plan selection is achieved by leveraging machine learning technology to further analyze the signals. Through a lower-limb rehabilitation robot, the authors demonstrate that the sensory system performs well in user recognition, motion monitoring, as well as robot and gaming-aided training, showing its potential in IoT-based smart healthcare applications.