Advancing Sports Injury Prevention with IMU-Based Foot Contact Detection

Traditional motion capture tools struggle to keep up with the fast, multidirectional movements in sports that often lead to injuries. Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) offer a promising alternative for tracking foot contact—an essential factor in biomechanical analysis—but most existing methods are designed for simple walking, not high-intensity sports.

Our latest systematic review analyzed 71 IMU-based foot contact detection algorithms across 37 studies focusing on dynamic sports movements like running and cutting. While many algorithms showed high accuracy, their performance dropped when athletes changed speed or direction. Crucially, few studies addressed complex maneuvers or injury-prone populations.

This review reveals a major gap: reliable IMU tools tailored for real-world, high-dynamics sports are still missing. Improving these technologies is key to better injury prediction and prevention on the field.