The research team displays prototypes of the smart insole. Image courtesy of NUS.
Professor Lim Chwee Teck, PhDm from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Department of Biomedical Engineering, collaborated with NUS start-up, FlexoSense, to develop a smart insole that can track workplace slips, trips, and falls (STFs) in real time. The insole will allow companies to identify the location of an incident and highlight STF risk areas to implement suitable mitigation measures.
The smart insole comprises pressure sensors to track foot pressure and an inertial measurement unit sensor to measure changes in motion. When an STF occurs, the body will initially try to maintain balance by exerting pressure on the feet to break the STF. The smart insole can pick up these unique changes in pressure, and a person’s orientation, to determine if an STF has occurred. Such changes are then recorded and measured in real time to generate balance profiles of different users, which could help in assessing the deployment of workers for various tasks. Additionally, falls from height can be detected by the smart insole as they have distinct velocity profiles compared to falls on level ground.
Information gathered from the smart insole can be easily accessed by workers through a mobile application and by company management via a dashboard. The digitalization of STF occurrences facilitates timely reporting and greater transparency on these incidents.
Beyond monitoring and reporting STFs, the smart insole recognizes daily activities including walking, standing, and sitting, allowing managers to identify potential risky actions such as when a worker should be walking instead of running, and to measure center of pressure to assess each worker’s sense of balance.
