2026 Undergraduate Research Showcase

Document Type

Student Presentation

Presentation Date

4-24-2026

Faculty Sponsor

Dr. Tyler Brown

Abstract

A larger foot strike angle (FSA, shift towards rearfoot strike) during locomotion may increase risk of lower-limb musculoskeletal injury risk by resulting in larger, faster vertical ground reaction forces. Recent advances in low-cost, portable marker-less motion capture have shown promise for accurate kinematic analysis of locomotion. Yet it is unknown if marker-less motion capture can accurately quantify FSA during common walk and run tasks. This study sought to be the first to quantify FSA with marker-less motion capture, and compare accuracy of marker-less derived FSA with FSA derived with marker based motion capture (gold standard) during a battery of walk and run tasks. 18 participants had FSA quantified using marker-less and marker-based motion capture as they walked (1.5 m/s) and ran (4.5 m/s) with and without body borne load (15 and 0 kg) over both flat and uneven surfaces. Although we were able to successfully quantify FSA with marker-less motion capture, marker-less FSA exhibited trivial to moderate relation with marker-based FSA (r: 0.03 to 0.51). Marker-less motion capture consistently underestimated FSA during both walk (MAE: ~8, nRMSE: ~ 55%) and run (MAE: ~ 12, nRMSE: ~ 100%) tasks.

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