Patent ID: 6145389
Filing Date: 2000-11-14
Classification: A61B,G01C

Abstract:
A device for measuring the length of the stride of a human user while walking or running comprising:(a) an accelerometer for providing an acceleration signal indicative of the acceleration of the foot of said user, said accelerometer being attached to said foot of said user;(b) processor memory for storing data related to the walking and running activity of said user, including a plurality of acceleration values of said foot of said user, time interval data indicating the length of a measurement interval, predetermined data indicative of the typical acceleration values of the human foot while walking and running, and data indicative of the stride of said user, said processor memory comprising in part non-volatile memory for storing data used to calculate the stride length for said user;(c) a data processor coupled to said accelerometer, and said processor memory, said data processor being configured to:(1) sample a plurality of values of said acceleration signal at redefined time intervals and store said time-varying sequence of acceleration values indicating the variation in the acceleration signal over time in said processor memory;(2) compare said time-varying sequence of acceleration values to predetermined data indicative of typical accelerations of the human foot caused by walking and running, determine a correlation between said sequence of acceleration values and strides of said user's foot, and determine whether said user is walking or running;(3) determine a plurality of stride profile data values from said time-varying sequence of acceleration values for each stride of said user's foot said stride profile data values indicative of the length of said user's stride;(4) determine the length of each said stride from said stride profile data values;(5) and determine the total distance traveled by adding the lengths of the strides taken by said user;(d) an output means to communicate information to said user, whereby said output means will display the total distance traveled by said user, and whereby a walker or runner knows the total distance traveled while walking and running.