A research on automatic human fall detection method based on wearable inertial force information acquisition system

Abstract

Frequent and high-risk fall accidents of the elders have become a serious medical and social problem. In this paper, a wireless automatic human fall detection device based on tri-axis accelerator is designed and realized; and a novel method to distinguish fall events from other daily activities is proposed also, including multi-impact falls and rolling down falls. In the real application, the device is worn on upper trunk of human body, with the algorithm focusing on the impact during a fall and the orientation of trunk before the fall and after it. At last, experiment is performed on some typical daily activities, such as walking, stand-to-sit, stand-to-squat, fall frontward, sideways, etc, and it has shown good results in high detection rate and low positive false rate.

Information Technology for Active Ageing: A Review of Theory and Practice

“…Thanks to these alerts, caregivers can immediately react and avoid or at least reduce the risk of more serious injuries. Most of these systems rely on wearable sensors that leverage on the use of tri-axial accelerometers to monitor body motion and detect falls [21,156,170]. In addition to accelerometers, Doukas and Maglogiannis [48] collect and monitor sound data, combining it with movement data in order to detect falls of patients.…”

Automated human fall detection system using a fluid dielectric, capacitive, multi axial acceleration sensor

“…But in case of human fall detection using three axes may give rise to incorrect data in case if the decline is not oriented along any of these axes. Hence, the magnitude of the fall is misjudged easily and wrong information about fall is transferred, which creates a superfluous uproar [2].…”

Accelerometer-based fall detection sensor system for the elderly

“…Wearable sensor based approach is classified as the most preferred and practically applicable class of fall detection techniques ___________________________________ 978-1-4673-1857-0/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE [8]. Various types of sensors have ever been used in former designs, such as pressure sensors [9], accelerometers [3,[10][11], gyroscopes or a combination of multiple types [12], to distinguish falls from other physical activities.…”

“…When accelerometer is used, the most widely used methods are based on thresholds [3,[10][11]. A fall is considered detected as long as one threshold is exceeded.…”

“…Recent advances in MEMS sensors, microprocessors and wireless communication technologies have facilitated the telemonitoring of people's physical activities with wireless sensor systems [3]. With wearable sensors attached to the elderly people or visual sensors attached to the wall, falls can be automatically detected.…”