Interactive sonification and the IoT: The case of smart sonic shoes for clinical applications

To date, little attention has been devoted by the research community to applications of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm to the field of interactive sonification. The IoT has the potential to facilitate the emergence of novel forms of interactive sonifications that are the result of shared control of the sonification system by both the user performing the gestures locally to the system itself, and one or more remote users. This can for instance impact therapies based on auditory feedback where the control of the sound generation may be shared by patients and doctors remotely connected. This paper describes a prototype of connected shoes for interactive sonification that can be remotely controlled and can collect data about the gait of a walker. The system targets primarily clinical applications where sound stimuli are utilized to help guide and improve walking actions of patients with motor impairments.