Feature Extraction from Ear-Worn Sensor Data for Gait Analysis

Gait analysis has a significant role in assessing human's walking pattern. It is generally used in sports science for understanding body mechanics, and it is also used to monitor patients' neuro-disorder related gait abnormalities. Traditional marker-based systems are well known for tracking gait parameters for gait analysis, however, it requires long set up time therefore very difficult to be applied in everyday real-time monitoring. Nowadays, there is ever growing of interest in developing portable devices and their supporting software with novel algorithms for gait pattern analysis. The aim of this research is to investigate the possibilities of novel gait pattern detection algorithms for accelerometer-based sensors. In particular, we have used e-AR sensor, an ear-worn sensor which registers body motion via its embedded 3-D accelerometer. Gait data was given semantic annotation using pressure mat as well as real-time video recording. Important time stamps within a gait cycle, which are essential for extracting meaningful gait parameters, were identified. Furthermore, advanced signal processing algorithm was applied to perform automatic feature extraction by signal decomposition and reconstruction. Analysis on real-word data has demonstrated the potential for an accelerometer-based sensor system and its ability to extract of meaningful gait parameters.