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i-m-Walk is a mobile application that uses pressure sensors in shoes to visualize phases of footsteps. Through a mobile device, it will raise the awareness for the user to improve his walking behaviour. As an example application in slow technology, we use i-m- Walk to help beginners to learn "walking meditation," a type of meditation where users ai...
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... movement can be divided into six phases, from the status of raising, lifting, pushing, lowering, stepping, to pressing. People should aware of the movement in each stage while walking meditation (see Figure 2). It is important to stay aware of the feet sensation. ...
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... and conclusion are presented and suggestions are made for further research. The first concept of wearable computing and smart clothing system included an intelligence cloth, glasses, and an intelligence shoes, and the intelligence shoes could detect the walking condition (Mann, 1997). Then, in past decade, there were many studies researched on this field, such as a study used pressure sensors and gyro sensors to detect user’s feet posture, including heel-off, swing, and heel-strike (Pappas et al., 2004), and a research embedded pressure sensors in the shoes to detect the walking cycle, and used vibrator to assist users while walking (Watanabe et al., 2005). Besides, there were many different methods on walking detection, such as used bend sensor (Morris et al., 2002), accelerometer (Crossan et al., 2005), ultrasonic (Yeh et al., 2007), and computer vision technology (Quek et al., 2008) to analyze pace. However, with the development of ubiquitous computing, there are many studies combined the technology of multimedia, feedback, and walking detector to assist people in different applications. Drobny designed an intelligent shoe that can detect the timing of pace, and play the music to help beginners learn the ballroom dancing. While it detected missed pace while dancing, it would show some warning messages to the user. (Drobny et al., 2009). Paradiso developed a system which can detect dancers’ pace and applied them to interact with the music (Paradiso, 2002). Mann developed a system which can writes out the music on a timeline along the ground, and each pace activates the next note in the song, it can train the ability of musical tempo and rhythm training for children (Mann, 2006). Reynolds designed a system which used visual information to adjust foot trajectory during the swing phase of a footstep when stepping onto a stationary target (Reynolds, 2005). In the application of walking in psychological field, Montoya used lighted target was used to load onto left side and right side of walkway, and stroke patients could follow the lighted target to carry on their pace. The results pointed out that stroke patient might effectively get help by using vision and hearing as guidance (Montoya, 1994). Also, an fMRI study on multimedia-assisted walking experiment showed that increased activation during visually guided self-generated ankle movements, and proved that multimedia-assisted walking is profound to people (Christensen et al., 2007). In the application of pace analysis in healthcare field, Noshadi developed a system which can detect the walking stability of elderly and thus to prevent falling down. The system monitored walking behaviours and used a fall risk estimation model to predict the future risk of a fall (Noshadi et al., 2008). Intiso used electromyography biofeedback system to evaluate the effect of biofeedback on stroke and rehabilitation patients, and the results showed that biofeedback could help patients recover the swing phase of foot-drop after training (Intiso et al., 1994). Moreover, in the application of pace analysis in entertainment, Nintendo published some walking- related games in recent years. Personal Trainer – Walking could detect users’ pace trough accelerometer, and users were encouraged to walk and got better scores (Nintendo, 2009). Wii is a well-known game console, and there had some interactions that should detect user’s pace information, such as jogging and dancing (Wii Fit, 2009). However, none of related research in our survey has a complete study to use multimedia-assisted biofeedback and intelligent shoes to help users aware of their pace and improve it. In this study, a complete research on integrating walking-aware shoes and multimedia feedback for learning walking meditation was proposed. In this paper, we will describe the measurement of walking signal, the walking-aware shoes, the biofeedback mechanisms, the experimental design, and the experimental results. The mechanism of meditation has many kinds and different postures, such as meditation in standing, sitting, lying down on back, and walking postures. While the user is mediating with the posture of walking, he would tend to feel less dull, tense, or easily distract in walking meditation . In this paper, we focus on the meditation in the posture of walking, which is also named walking meditation. Walking meditation is a moving meditation which aligns the feeling of body inside and outside. Also, it would help people focus and concentrate on his mind and body. Furthermore, it can also deeply investigate our knowledge and wisdom. The principle of walking meditation aims to be as slow as possible in taking pace, and landing each pace with toes first. The people could focus on the movement of his feet while walking. The movement can be divided into six phases, from the status of raising, lifting, pushing, lowering, stepping, to pressing. People should aware of the movement in each stage while walking meditation (see Figure 2). It is important to stay aware of the feet sensation. Keep practicing of walking meditation is an effective way to align the mind and body, and to enhance the feeling of mindfulness. Mindfulness can be defined as careful, open-hearted, choiceless, present moment awareness. While feeling mindfulness, people will slow down the footstep while walking meditation . With long-term practice of walking meditation , it benefits people by increasing patience, enhancing attention, overcoming drowsiness, and leading to healthy body (Hanh et al., 2006). The goal of this study is to help beginners aware of their mind and body, and to get healthier after walking meditation . Therefore, i-m-Walk system was developed to assist beginners in learning the walking methods of walking meditation , i-m-Walk includes a pair of intelligent shoes, an ZigBee-to-Bluetooth relay, and a smartphone. Inside the intelligent shoes, there are three force sensitive resistor sensors fixed underneath each shoe insole, and the sensing values will transfer wirelessly through the relay to the smartphone. We develop the system that can analyze the pace information, and show the information through visual feedback. The system is running on HTC HD2 smartphone which running Window Mobile 6.5 and has a 4.3-inch LCD screen. The overview of the system is shown in Figure ...
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