**Preface to "Sensors for Gait, Posture, and Health Monitoring"**

The acquisition of gait and postural characteristics during active and passive movements provides important information about limb propulsion and postural control strategies and provides insight into performance and risk of injury. These measures were traditionally assessed by utilizing motion capture systems and force plates. Although modern motion capture laboratories collect precise gait and posture data, they are expensive and immobile and require serial (single person at-a-time data capture) and clustered data collection, limiting the use of motion capture in the field to obtain more realistic motion profiles that may be applicable to various interventions.

As such, in recent years, many technologies for gait and posture assessments have emerged. Wearable sensors, active and passive in-house monitors, and many combinations thereof all promise to provide accurate measures of gait and posture parameters. The objective of this Special Issue is to address and disseminate the latest gait and posture monitoring systems as well as various mathematical models/methods that characterize mobility functions.

This Special Issue explores the core scientific issues associated with the use of custom-designed, wearable, wireless sensor nodes for continuous, non-invasive gait–posture–activity monitoring and analysis in orderto accurately study the relationship between these monitoring variables and physical and psychological health conditions to predict adverse medical events in a variety of populations. This type of assessment will dramatically expand the clinical usefulness of these analyses and pave the way for identifying potential adverse health conditions and appropriate interventions for those most at risk.

> **Thurmon Lockhart** *Special Issue Editor*
