A Minimum Toe-clearance Detector for Tripping Prediction

Abstract

Elderly people are at the risk of serious injuries by falling. As most of falls result from tripping, researchers assess the ease of tripping using the minimum toe clearance (MinTC) measure, which is known to be more variable in the elderly than in younger people. This paper proposes a method that judges the ease of tripping from the MinTC height measured by a One Dimensional Brightness Distribution Sensor (Obrid-Sensor). Using our method, we detected the difference between normal and dangerous gaits, and found significant differences between two gait types. In conclusion, our proposed system clearly distinguished normal from dangerous gaits. In future work, the method will be further adapted to actual environments by widening its detection area.