Development and validation of a force platform to measure ground reaction forces of national athletes

Abstract

Force platforms are the most commonly used sensory instrument used in the measurement of ground reaction forces for sports biomechanical evaluation. This paper documents the development and validation of such a force platform to be used by national level athletes. The developed force platform consists of four load cells, and an aluminium plate of dimensions 70.6cm × 70.6cm. The data acquired can be monitored on a graphical user interface. Nine segments of the force platform was evaluated at two separate loads to determine regional dependencies. The maximum difference in measurements between segments was 0.6% for the higher load. The force platform was compared against a commercially available force platform, for its ability to accurately measure loads up to 5000N. The developed platform performed better in comparison, when measuring forces above 1000N. The developed force platform is not regionally dependent, and is able to measure ground reaction forces up to 5000N at a sampling rate of 1000Hz, with an accuracy of above 99% between 1000N and 5000N.