Our environmental simulation facilities enable researchers to investigate human performance, comfort and behaviour under a range of realistic environmental conditions. These facilities include:
the Kistler Gaitway instrumented treadmill for gait, balance and human movement studies
sound simulation facilities for studies of noise, acoustics and their effects on human performance and comfort
thermal simulation facilities for research into human responses to temperature and environmental conditions
Kistler Gaitway instrumented treadmill
The Kistler Gaitway instrumented treadmill is used for fundamental research into gait analysis and postural stability. It is used to provide a walking task for subjects exposed to whole-body vibration, for example on the six-axis motion simulator.
Software automatically calculates more than 25 gait parameters of a human subject when walking on the treadmill.
Commercially it can be used to study the effect of vibration and jolts of, for example, a person walking along the aisle of a train carriage or a corridor on ship.
Walking on the treadmill Gaitway measures the vertical ground reaction force and the center of pressure (COP) of consecutive strides in walking and running. The treadmill simplifies the challenges associated with force plate targeting found in conventional walkway systems.
The force measurements allow for calculation of force, centre of pressure (COP), and temporal (time-based) gait parameters. Data from auxiliary devices such as EMG and goniometers can be collected via the treadmill data acquisition card and synchronized with the force data.
