Data for: Descending 13 real world steps: A dataset and analysis of stair descent

Stair descent analysis has been typically limited to laboratory staircases of 4 or 5 steps. To date there has been no report of gait parameters during unconstrained stair descent outside of the laboratory, and few motion capture datasets are publicly available. We aim to collect a dataset and perform gait analysis for stair descent outside of the laboratory. We aim to measure basic kinematic and kinetic gait parameters and foot placement behavior. We present a public stair descent dataset from 101 unimpaired participants aged 18-35 on an unconstrained 13-step staircase collected using wearable sensors. The dataset consists of kinematics (full-body joint angle and position), kinetics (plantar normal forces, acceleration), and foot placement for 30,609 steps. This is the first quantitative observation of gait data from a large number (n = 101) of participants descending an unconstrained staircase outside of a laboratory. The dataset is a public resource for understanding typical stair descent.