3-D Gait Abnormality Detection Employing Contactless IR-UWB Sensing Phenomenon

Gait disorder diagnosis and rehabilitation is one area where human perception and observation are highly integrated. Predominantly, gait evaluation comprises technological devices for gait analysis, such as dedicated force sensors, cameras, and wearable sensor-based solutions; however, they are limited by insufficient gait parameter recognition, postprocessing, installation costs, mobility, and skin irritation issues. Thus, the proposed study concentrates on the creation of a widely deployable, noncontact and nonintrusive gait recognition method from impulse radio ultrawideband (IR-UWB) sensing phenomenon, where a standalone IR-UWB system can detect gait problems with less human intervention. A 3-D human motion model for gait identification from IR-UWB has been proposed with embracing spherical trigonometry and vector algebra to determine knee angles. Subsequently, normal and abnormal walking subjects were involved in this study. Abnormal gait subjects belong to the spastic gait category only. The prototype has been tested in both anechoic and multipath environments. The outcomes have been corroborated with a simultaneously deployed Kinect Xbox sensor and supported by a statistical graphical approach Bland and Altman (B&A) analysis.