Flexible and Wearable EMG and PSD Sensors Enabled Locomotion Mode Recognition for IoHT-Based In-Home Rehabilitation

Benefiting from the development of the Internet of Healthcare Things (IoHT) in recent years, locomotion mode recognition using wearable sensors plays a more and more important role in the field of in-home rehabilitation. In this paper, a smart sensing system utilizing flexible electromyography (EMG) sensors and a forty-eight-channel plantar stress distribution sensor for locomotion mode recognition is presented, together with its use under the IoHT architecture. EMG and plantar stress distribution (PSD) information from ten healthy subjects in five common locomotion modes in daily life were collected, analyzed, and then transmitted to remote end terminals (e.g., personal computers). The data analysis process was implemented with machine learning techniques, through which the locomotion modes were determined with a high accuracy of 96.53%. This article demonstrates a feasible means for accurate locomotion mode recognition by combining wearable sensing techniques and the machine learning algorithm, potentially advancing the development for IoHT based in-home rehabilitation.