smart floors

Engineers at MIT’s CSAIL have developed a smart carpet that can accurately estimate a person’s movements or body pose without needing cameras. The system could be useful for exercise feedback, monitoring falls, or tracking for VR and gaming.

UK tech firm Pavegen has been harvesting pedestrian power with floor tiles that convert the kinetic energy of footsteps into electricity since 2009. Today, the firm has launched a new version of the tiles and, in addition to being more efficient, they are able to capture footfall data.

Scientists in Germany are developing high-resolution pressure-sensitive floors to track people and furniture in rooms.