Fall detection using ceiling-mounted 3D depth camera

This paper proposes an algorithm for fall detection using a ceiling-mounted 3D depth camera. The lying pose is separated from common daily activities by a k-NN classifier, which was trained on features expressing head-floor distance, person area and shape's major length to width. In order to distinguish between intentional lying postures and accidental falls the algorithm also employs motion between static postures. The experimental validation of the algorithm was conducted on realistic depth image sequences of daily activities and simulated falls. It was evaluated on more than 45000 depth images and gave 0% error. To reduce the processing overload an accelerometer was used to indicate the potential impact of the person and to start an analysis of depth images.