Equine Gait Recognition using Wearable Technology for Endurance Monitoring: A Preliminary Study

To overcome limitation in equine gait monitoring, a low-cost monitoring device is needed especially for long-distance event performance monitoring. Current devices capture horse gait in limited range of distance, limited duration usage and expensive. Mobile application such as Androsensor has shown a great potential in horse gait recognition. However, further study is still warranted in order to determine the reliability of this kind of mobile application for performance monitoring especially for long-distance event such as endurance. In this study, a validation test of Androsensor mobile application for equine gait patterns recognition was conducted before the data can be applied for long-distance performance monitoring. Two horses (Thoroughbred) were used in this preliminary study. A unit of inertia measurement unit sensor (IMU) (Delsys Trigno Avanti Sensor) with 150 Hz sampling rate and a mini smartphone installed with Androsensor apps with 200 Hz sampling rate were attached together on horse forelimb pastern to compare the acceleration of horse gait signal captured by both devices. The data captured by both devices were analyzed. The correlation coefficient between an established device (IMU) and the Androsensor apps have shown a good correlation with higher correlation coefficient (r > 0.5) for walk, trot and canter. This finding indicates that the Androsensor mobile application has a great potential to be used in equine gait research and performance monitoring. It also can offer a wide function in this field as it is cheap and wearable.