Optimal Algorithms for Improving Pressure-Sensitive Mat Centre of Pressure Measurements

The accurate measurement of human balance is required in numerous analysis and training applications. Force plates are frequently used but are too costly to be suitable for home-based systems such as balance training. A growing body of research and commercial products use Pressure-Sensitive Mats (PSMs) for balance measurement. Low-cost PSMs are constructed with a piezoresistive material and use copper tracks as conductors. However, these lack accuracy, as they often have a low resolution and suffer from noise, non-repeatable effects, and crosstalk. This paper proposes novel algorithms that enable the Centre of Pressure (CoP) to be computed using low-cost PSM designs with significantly higher accuracy than is currently achievable. A mathematical model of a general low-cost PSM was developed and used to select the design of the PSM (track width and placement) that maximises CoP accuracy. These yield new optimal PSM geometries that decrease the mean absolute CoP error from 17.37% to 5.47% for an 8 × 8 sensor layout. Then, knowledge of the footprint was used to further optimise accuracy, showing a decrease in absolute error from 17.37% to 3.93% for an 8 × 8 sensor layout. A third algorithm was derived using models of human movement to further reduce measurement error.