Motion Sensor Gait Analysis for Retail Footwear Recommendation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing fitness monitoring devices fail to provide individuals with quick, accurate, and insightful performance feedback that enables them to compare past performances, develop strategies for improving future performances, or select appropriate athletic equipment, particularly in a retail environment.
Innovation Solution
A method and system using motion sensors to analyze an individual's gait characteristics during athletic activities, providing recommendations for footwear based on these characteristics and personal information, and allowing for comparisons between different activities and storing this data for future reference.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If simple sensors are used for fitness monitoring, then device complexity is reduced, but measurement precision and reliability of performance feedback deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple sensor types (accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, barometer, GPS) into an integrated sensor module that collects comprehensive motion data. This merging allows the system to achieve high measurement precision for gait analysis while managing device complexity through integrated hardware design.
Solution Approach 2:
The sensor module is designed to perform multiple functions: tracking position, measuring acceleration, detecting orientation, monitoring altitude, and analyzing gait characteristics. This multi-functionality enables the system to provide comprehensive performance feedback without requiring separate specialized devices for each measurement type.
2Reliability
If detailed gait analysis is performed across multiple activities, then reliability of footwear recommendations improves, but loss of time for data collection and processing increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary gait analysis during the first athletic activity to establish baseline characteristics. This preliminary data collection allows for initial footwear recommendations without requiring extensive data from multiple activities, reducing the time investment while maintaining recommendation reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system provides feedback by comparing gait characteristics across different activities and using this comparison to refine footwear recommendations. The feedback mechanism allows the system to improve reliability progressively, using each additional activity to enhance rather than merely accumulate data.
3Adaptability or versatility
If motion sensors are integrated into footwear for retail environment analysis, then adaptability of the system improves, but device complexity and manufacturing precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system is segmented into separate functional modules: the sensor module integrated in footwear for data collection, the mobile device for processing and analysis, and the retail system for recommendations. This segmentation allows adaptability across different retail environments while managing complexity through modular design, where each component has a specific function.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for providing a recommendation to an individual about an article of footwear includes receiving data about the individual from a sensor module associated with the individual during a first athletic activity engaged in by the individual, determining a first characteristic about the individual's gait based on the data related to the first athletic activity, providing a recommendation about a first article of footwear to the individual based on the first characteristic, receiving data about the individual from the sensor module associated with the individual during a second athletic activity engaged in by the individual, determining a second characteristic about the individual's gait based on the data related to the second athletic activity, comparing the first characteristic with the second characteristic, and providing a recommendation about a second article of footwear to the individual based on the comparison.