Feature extraction of autism gait data using principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis

In this research, the application of machine learning approach specifically support vector machine along with principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis as feature extractions are evaluated and validated in discriminating gait features between normal subjects and autism children. Gait features of 32 normal and 12 autism children were recorded and analyzed using VICON motion analysis system and a force platform during normal walking. Here, twenty one gait features describing the three types of gait characteristics namely basic, kinetic and kinematic in these children are extracted. Further, with these gait features as input during classification, the ability of SVM as classifier are investigated using three different kernel functions specifically linear, polynomial, and radial basis. Results showed that LDA as feature extraction is the highest accuracy with kinematic parameters as gait features along with polynomial function as kernel for the SVM classifier. This finding proven that LDA is suitable as feature extraction and SVM is indeed apt as gait classifier in classifying the gait pattern autism and normal children.