STTR Phase II: Monitor for Gait and Form Analytics

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is the ability to collect objective data on both pace and gait/foot strike to give a clear and detailed picture of how a person actually moves stride-by-stride outside of a laboratory. The initial market of college, high school and recreational runners represents a near-term opportunity with high demand and relatively low barriers to entry. Use of this technology in this market promises to improve runner performance by up to 20% and reduce running injuries. This overall serviceable available market is $776 million and growing annually at rate of 29%. After proving the technology in this near-term market, there is potential for the technology to achieve even greater societal benefit in gait analysis, including, enabling ongoing monitoring and prediction of gait and balance issues in Americans over age 65, 11.5 million of whom fall each year; and providing more accurate, dynamic data to offload foot pressure in diabetic patients, 1.8 million of whom sustain diabetic foot ulcers each year. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will advance a gait analysis device that combines a novel polymeric pressure sensing technology with an accelerometer and electronics to collect, process and visualize pace and gait/foot strike data. This innovative pressure sensing technology utilizes conductive polymeric materials and hybrid fabrication techniques to produce sensor arrays that are 100% solid state; as polymers they can be flexible, robust, and cost effective. Under the Phase I project, a sensor array was produced based on an optimized material formulation and sensor configuration, a printed circuit board and software were developed for use with the system, and a prototype was demonstrated with distance runners to prove it generates meaningful data. This SBIR Phase II project will complete development of the prototype and scale up hardware production. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.