Real-time human ambulation, activity, and physiological monitoring:taxonomy of issues, techniques, applications, challenges and limitations

Automated methods of real-time, unobtrusive, human ambulation, activity, and wellness monitoring and data analysis using various algorithmic techniques have been subjects of intense research. The general aim is to devise effective means of addressing the demands of assisted living, rehabilitation, and clinical observation and assessment through sensor-based monitoring. The research studies have resulted in a large amount of literature. This paper presents a holistic articulation of the research studies and offers comprehensive insights along four main axes: distribution of existing studies; monitoring device framework and sensor types; data collection, processing and analysis; and applications, limitations and challenges. The aim is to present a systematic and most complete study of literature in the area in order to identify research gaps and prioritize future research directions

DeepWalking: Enabling Smartphone-based Walking Speed Estimation Using Deep Learning

Walking speed estimation is an essential component of mobile apps in various fields such as fitness, transportation, navigation, and health-care. Most existing solutions are focused on specialized medical applications that utilize body-worn motion sensors. These approaches do not serve effectively the general use case of numerous apps where the user holding a smartphone tries to find his or her walking speed solely based on smartphone sensors. However, existing smartphone-based approaches fail to provide acceptable precision for walking speed estimation. This leads to a question: is it possible to achieve comparable speed estimation accuracy using a smartphone over wearable sensor based obtrusive solutions? We find the answer from advanced neural networks. In this paper, we present DeepWalking, the first deep learning-based walking speed estimation scheme for smartphone. A deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) is applied to automatically identify and extract the most effective features from the accelerometer and gyroscope data of smartphone and to train the network model for accurate speed estimation. Experiments are performed with 10 participants using a treadmill. The average root-mean-squared-error (RMSE) of estimated walking speed is 0.16m/s which is comparable to the results obtained by state-of-the-art approaches based on a number of body-worn sensors (i.e., RMSE of 0.11m/s). The results indicate that a smartphone can be a strong tool for walking speed estimation if the sensor data are effectively calibrated and supported by advanced deep learning techniques.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figures, published in IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM

Semi-wildlife gait patterns classification using Statistical Methods and Artificial Neural Networks

Several studies have focused on classifying behavioral patterns in wildlife and captive species to monitor their activities and so to understanding the interactions of animals and control their welfare, for biological research or commercial purposes. The use of pattern recognition techniques, statistical methods and Overall Dynamic Body Acceleration (ODBA) are well known for animal behavior recognition tasks. The reconfigurability and scalability of these methods are not trivial, since a new study has to be done when changing any of the configuration parameters. In recent years, the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) has increased for this purpose due to the fact that they can be easily adapted when new animals or patterns are required. In this context, a comparative study between a theoretical research is presented, where statistical and spectral analyses were performed and an embedded implementation of an ANN on a smart collar device was placed on semi-wild animals. This system is part of a project whose main aim is to monitor wildlife in real time using a wireless sensor network infrastructure. Different classifiers were tested and compared for three different horse gaits. Experimental results in a real time scenario achieved an accuracy of up to 90.7%, proving the efficiency of the embedded ANN implementation.Junta de Andalucía P12-TIC-1300Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TEC2016-77785-