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Gait Recognition and Digital Mobility Outcomes Based on Wearable Sensing Technology

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2026 | Viewed by 506

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Nutrition and Movement Sciences, MHeNs Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, 6211 LK Maastricht, The Netherlands
Interests: technology in motion; gait-environment interactions; visual computing; augmented reality; walking assessments

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Wearable sensors can provide continuous and objective measurements of human motion, enabling gait recognition (alongside other motor states) and its quantification with digital mobility outcomes in controlled and real-world settings. Advances in wearable sensor technology and their increased public accessibility (e.g., phones, smart glasses, AR/VR), in combination with advances in signal processing, sensor fusion, machine learning and AI, now allow us more than ever to extract meaningful metrics for gait and mobility activity, performance and quality. These metrics may inform various applications in sports, health care and activity monitoring.

This Special Issue of Sensors welcomes contributions focused on methodological innovations and data-driven approaches for detecting and analysing gait and mobility using wearable technologies. Topics include motor state detection, signal denoising, event detection, machine learning for mobility metrics, and validation of wearable-based mobility metrics with (ideally) direct practical implications for use in applied settings. By integrating expertise from engineering, data science, movement science, and health technology into applied fields like sports, rehabilitation and lifestyle interventions, this Special Issue aims to advance quantitative methods that transform wearable sensor data of gait into actionable digital mobility outcomes for real-world use cases.

Dr. Melvyn Roerdink
Guest Editor

Mr. Pieter van Doorn
Guest Editor Assistant

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • wearable sensors
  • gait analysis
  • digital mobility outcomes
  • signal processing
  • data fusion
  • machine learning
  • mobility metrics
  • real-world monitoring

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 4038 KB  
Article
Deriving Motor States and Mobility Metrics from Gamified Augmented Reality Rehabilitation Exercises in People with Parkinson’s Disease
by Pieter F. van Doorn, Edward Nyman, Jr., Koen Wishaupt, Marjolein M. van der Krogt and Melvyn Roerdink
Sensors 2025, 25(23), 7172; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25237172 - 24 Nov 2025
Viewed by 409
Abstract
People with Parkinson’s disease (PD) experience mobility impairments that impact daily functioning, yet conventional clinical assessments provide limited insight into real-world mobility. This study evaluated motor-state classification and the concurrent validity of mobility metrics derived from augmented-reality (AR) glasses against a markerless motion [...] Read more.
People with Parkinson’s disease (PD) experience mobility impairments that impact daily functioning, yet conventional clinical assessments provide limited insight into real-world mobility. This study evaluated motor-state classification and the concurrent validity of mobility metrics derived from augmented-reality (AR) glasses against a markerless motion capture system (Theia3D) during gamified AR exercises. Fifteen participants with PD completed five gamified AR exercises measured with both systems. Motor-state segments included straight walking, turning, squatting, and sit-to-stand/stand-to-sit transfers, from which the following mobility metrics were derived: step length, gait speed, cadence, transfer and squat durations, squat depth, turn duration, and peak turn angular velocity. We found excellent between-systems consistency for head position (X, Y, Z) and yaw-angle time series (ICC(c,1) > 0.932). The AR-based motor-state classification showed high accuracy, with F1-scores of 0.947–1.000. Absolute agreement with Theia3D was excellent for all mobility metrics (ICC(A,1) > 0.904), except for cadence during straight walking and peak angular velocity during turns, which were good and moderate (ICC(A,1) = 0.890, ICC(A,1) = 0.477, respectively). These results indicate that motor states and associated mobility metrics can be accurately derived during gamified AR exercises, verified in a controlled laboratory environment in people with mild to moderate PD, a necessary first step towards unobtrusive derivation of mobility metrics during in-clinic and at-home AR neurorehabilitation exercise programs. Full article
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