Skip to main content
Log in

RGB-D camera based walking pattern recognition by support vector machines for a smart rollator

  • Regular Paper
  • Published:
International Journal of Intelligent Robotics and Applications Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper presents a walking pattern detection method for a smart rollator. The method detects the rollator user’s lower extremities from the depth data of an RGB-D camera. It then segments the 3D point data of the lower extremities into the leg and foot data points, from which a skeletal system with 6 skeletal points and 4 rods is extracted and used to represent a walking gait. A gait feature, comprising the parameters of the gait shape and gait motion, is then constructed to describe a walking state. K-means clustering is employed to cluster all gait features obtained from a number of walking videos into 6 key gait features. Using these key gait features, a walking video sequence is modeled as a Markov chain. The stationary distribution of the Markov chain represents the walking pattern. Three Support Vector Machines (SVMs) are trained for walking pattern detection. Each SVM detects one of the three walking patterns. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method has a better performance in detecting walking patterns than seven existing methods.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.

References

  • http://pointclouds.org/documentation/tutorials/region_growing_segmentation.php

  • Alwan, M., Ledoux, A., Wasson, G., et al.: Basic walker-assisted gait characteristics derived from forces and moments exerted on the Walker’s Handles: results on normal subjects. Med. Eng. Phys. 29, 380–389 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chaaraoui, A.A., Padilla-López, J.R., Climent-Pére, P., et al.: Evolutionary joint selection to improve human action recognition with RGB-D devices. Expert Syst. Appl. 41, 786–794 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dune, C., Gorce, P., Merlet, J.P.: Can smart rollators be used for gait monitoring and fall prevention? IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (2012)

  • Gritti, A., Tarabini, O., Guzzi, J.: Kinect-based People Detection and Tracking from Small-footprint Ground Robots. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Chicago, IL ((2014))

  • Joly, C., Dune, C.: Feet and Legs Tracking Using a Smart Rollator Equipped with a Kinect. IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Tokyo, Japan (2013)

  • Laptev, I., Caputo, B., Schüldt, C., et al.: Local velocity-adapted motion events for spatio-temporal recognition. Comput. Vis. Image Underst. 108, 207–229 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lowe, D.: Distinctive image features from scale-invariant keypoints. Int. J. Comput. Vision 60, 91–110 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mona, M.M., Elsayed, H., Magda, B.F., et al.: An enhanced method for human action recognition. J. Adv. Res. 6, 163–169 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearson, K.: On lines and planes of closest fit to systems of Points in space. Phil. Mag. 2, 559–572 (1901)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Pelleg, D., Moore, A.W.: X-means: Extending K-means with Efficient Estimation of the Number of Clusters. International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) (2000)

  • Qian, X., Ye, C.: NCC-RANSAC: a fast plane extraction method for 3D range data segmentation. IEEE Trans. Cybern. 44, 2771–2783 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ricardo, C., Hesam, S., Alberto, C., et al.: The opportunity challenge: a benchmark database for on-body sensor-based activity recognition. Pattern Recogn. Lett. 34, 2033–2042 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sagha, H., Digumarti, S.T., Millán, J.D.R., Chavarriaga, R.: Benchmarking classification techniques using the Opportunity human activity dataset. In IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) (2011)

  • Tung, J.: Development and Evaluation of the iWalker: An Instrumented Rolling Walker to Assess Balance and Mobility in Everyday Activities. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto (2010)

  • Xiaodong, Y., YingLi, T.: Eigenjoints-based action recognition using naive-bayes-nearest-neighbor. Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops, Providence (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang, H., Ye, C.: An RGB-D camera based walking pattern detection method for smart rollators. Lect. Notes Comput. Sci. 9474, 624–633 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Nursing Research, and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health under Award R01NR016151. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cang Ye.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Zhang, H., Ye, C. RGB-D camera based walking pattern recognition by support vector machines for a smart rollator. Int J Intell Robot Appl 1, 32–42 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41315-016-0002-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41315-016-0002-6

Keywords

Navigation