Skip to main content

Active Capacitive Sensing: Exploring a New Wearable Sensing Modality for Activity Recognition

  • Conference paper

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 6030))

Abstract

The paper describes the concept, implementation, and evaluation of a new on-body capacitive sensing approach to derive activity related information. Using conductive textile based electrodes that are easy to integrate in garments, we measure changes in capacitance inside the human body. Such changes are related to motions and shape changes of muscle, skin, and other tissue, which can in turn be related to a broad range of activities and physiological parameters. We describe the physical principle, the analog hardware needed to acquire and pre-process the signal, and example signals from different body locations and actions. We perform quantitative evaluations of the recognition accuracy, focused on the specific example of collar-integrated electrodes and actions, such as chewing, swallowing, speaking, sighing (taking a deep breath), as well as different head motions and positions.

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

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Abowd, D., Dey, A., Orr, R., Brotherton, J.: Context-awareness in wearable and ubiquitous computing. Virtual Reality 3(3), 200–211 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Amento, B., Hill, W., Terveen, L.: The sound of one hand: a wrist-mounted bio-acoustic fingertip gesture interface. In: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 724–725. ACM, New York (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Amft, O., Stager, M., Lukowicz, P., Troster, G.: Analysis of Chewing Sounds for Dietary Monitoring. In: Beigl, M., Intille, S.S., Rekimoto, J., Tokuda, H. (eds.) UbiComp 2005. LNCS, vol. 3660, pp. 56–72. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Amft, O., Junker, H., Lukowicz, P., Tröster, G., Schuster, C.: Sensing muscle activities with body-worn sensors. In: BSN 2006: Proceedings of the International Workshop on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks, pp. 138–141. IEEE Press, Los Alamitos (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  5. Amft, O., Tröster, G.: Methods for detection and classification of normal swallowing from muscle activation and sound. In: PHC 2006: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, ICST, pp. 1–10. IEEE digital library, Los Alamitos (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Amft, O., Tröster, G.: Recognition of dietary activity events using on-body sensors. Artificial Intelligence in Medicine 42(2), 121–136 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Amft, O., Tröster, G.: On-body sensing solutions for automatic dietary monitoring. IEEE Pervasive Computing 8(2), 62–70 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Aylward, R., Paradiso, J.: Sensemble: a wireless, compact, multi-user sensor system for interactive dance. In: Proceedings of the 2006 conference on New interfaces for musical expression, pp. 134–139. IRCAM—Centre Pompidou Paris, France (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Bao, L., Intille, S.: Activity recognition from user-annotated acceleration data. In: Ferscha, A., Mattern, F. (eds.) PERVASIVE 2004. LNCS, vol. 3001, pp. 1–17. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Bulling, A., Ward, J., Gellersen, H., Troster, G.: Robust Recognition of Reading Activity in Transit Using Wearable Electrooculography. In: Indulska, J., Patterson, D.J., Rodden, T., Ott, M. (eds.) PERVASIVE 2008. LNCS, vol. 5013, pp. 19–37. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  11. Chavannes, N., Tay, R., Nikoloski, N., Kuster, N.: Suitability of FDTD-based TCAD tools RF design of mobile phones. IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine 45(6), 52–66 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Cheng, J., Lukowicz, P.: Towards wearable capacitive sensing of physiological parameters. In: Second International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, Pervasive Health 2008, pp. 272–273 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Dunne, L., Walsh, P., Smyth, B., Caulfield, B.: Design and evaluation of a wearable optical sensor for monitoring seated spinal posture. In: 2006 10th IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers, pp. 65–68 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Farringdon, J., Moore, A., Tilbury, N., Church, J., Biemond, P.: Wearable Sensor Badge & Sensor Jacket for Context Awareness. In: Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Wearable Computers, pp. 107–113 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Firmin, H., Reilly, S., Fourcin, A.: Non-invasive monitoring of reflexive swallowing. In: Speech, Hearing and Language: work in progress, vol. 10, Department of Phonetics and Linguistics. University College London, UCL (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Gellersen, H., Schmidt, A., Beigl, M.: Multi-Sensor Context-Awareness in Mobile Devices and Smart Artifacts. Mobile Networks and Applications 7(5), 341–351 (2002)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  17. Hurkmans, H.L.P., Bussmann, J.B.J., Benda, E., Verhaar, J.A.N., Stam, H.J.: Accuracy and repeatability of the pedar mobile system in long-term vertical force measurements. Gait & Posture 23(1), 118–125 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Kern, N., Schiele, B., Schmidt, A.: Multi-sensor Activity Context Detection for Wearable Computing. In: Aarts, E., Collier, R.W., van Loenen, E., de Ruyter, B. (eds.) EUSAI 2003. LNCS, vol. 2875, pp. 220–232. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Lauterbach, C., Glaser, R., Savio, D., Schnell, M., Weber, W., Kornely, S., Stb’hr, A.: A Self-organizing and Fault-Tolerant Wired Peer-to-Peer Sensor Network for Textile Applications. In: Brueckner, S.A., Di Marzo Serugendo, G., Karageorgos, A., Nagpal, R. (eds.) ESOA 2005. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3464, pp. 256–266. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Lester, J., Choudhury, T., Borriello, G.: A Practical Approach to Recognizing Physical Activities. In: Fishkin, K.P., Schiele, B., Nixon, P., Quigley, A. (eds.) PERVASIVE 2006. LNCS, vol. 3968, pp. 1–16. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  21. Lopez, A., Richardson, P.: Capacitive electrocardiographic and bioelectric electrodes. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 99 (1969)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Lukowicz, P., Hanser, F., Szubski, C., Schobersberger, W.: Detecting and Interpreting Muscle Activity with Wearable Force Sensors. In: Fishkin, K.P., Schiele, B., Nixon, P., Quigley, A. (eds.) PERVASIVE 2006. LNCS, vol. 3968, pp. 101–116. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  23. Maurer, U., Rowe, A., Smailagic, A., Siewiorek, D.: eWatch: A Wearable Sensor and Notification Platform. In: Proceedings of the Int. Workshop on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Meyer, J., Lukowicz, P., Troster, G.: Textile Pressure Sensor for Muscle Activity and Motion Detection. In: Proceedings of the 10th IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers, pp. 69–72 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Michaelles, F., Wicki, R., Schiele, B.: Less Contact: Heart-rate detection without even touching the user. In: Proc. of the Eighth International Symposium on Wearable Computers, pp. 4–7. IEEE Computer Society, Washington (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  26. Oum, J., Lee, S., Kim, D., Hong, S.: Non-contact heartbeat and respiration detector using capacitive sensor with Colpitts oscillator. Electr. Letters 44(2), 87–88 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Ueno, A., Akabane, Y., Kato, T., Hoshino, H., Kataoka, S., Ishiyama, Y.: Capacitive sensing of electrocardiographic potential through cloth from the dorsal surface of the body in a supine position: a preliminary study. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering 54(4), 759–766 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Van Laerhoven, K., Cakmakci, O.: What shall we teach our pants? In: The Fourth International Symposium on Wearable Computers, pp. 77–83 (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Warsito, W., Marashdeh, Q., Fan, L.: Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography. IEEE Sensors Journal 7(4), 525 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Wimmer, R., Holleis, P., Kranz, M., Schmidt, A.: Thracker-Using Capacitive Sensing for Gesture Recognition. In: Proceedings of the 26th IEEE International ConferenceWorkshops on Distributed Computing Systems. IEEE Computer Society, Washington (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Zimmerman, T.G., Smith, J.R., Paradiso, J.A., Allport, D., Gershenfeld, N.: Applying electric field sensing to human-computer interfaces. In: CHI 1995: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 280–287. ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. (1995)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Cheng, J., Amft, O., Lukowicz, P. (2010). Active Capacitive Sensing: Exploring a New Wearable Sensing Modality for Activity Recognition. In: Floréen, P., Krüger, A., Spasojevic, M. (eds) Pervasive Computing. Pervasive 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6030. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12654-3_19

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-12654-3_19

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-12653-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-12654-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics