Authors:
Nico Graumüller
1
;
Constantin Gis
1
;
Franziska Geiger
2
;
Iman Soodmand
2
;
Maeruan Kebbach
2
;
Rainer Bader
2
;
Christian Haubelt
1
and
Florian Grützmacher
1
Affiliations:
1
Institute of Applied Microelectronics and Computer Engineering, University of Rostock, 18059 Rostock, Germany
;
2
Department of Orthopaedics, Rostock University Medical Center, 18057 Rostock, Germany
Keyword(s):
Posture Detection, Barometric Pressure Sensors, Wearable Sensors, Differential Height Measurements.
Abstract:
The detection of human postures is a well-studied research area that is closely related to human activity recognition. Recent advantages of MEMS-based barometric pressure sensors have made them an interesting additional sensing modality apart from IMU-based approaches. State-of-the-art barometric pressure sensors allow for measuring changes in barometric pressure corresponding to height differences in the range of centimeters. However, they are susceptible to environmental pressure changes, which can significantly influence the application. Therefore, we propose a posture detection approach based on differential height measurements from multiple body-worn barometric pressure sensors. We conducted an initial laboratory study with 13 subjects (eight males and four females), evaluating standing, sitting, and lying down postures using four body-worn barometric pressure sensors positioned at the head, hip, wrist, and ankle. Our results demonstrate that only two sensors are needed to separ
ate the studied postures in the feature space. Furthermore, the differential height measurement approach can compensate for environmental pressure influences to an insignificant level w.r.t. posture separability in our setup. The efficacy of our proposed approach is further substantiated by the observed separability of sitting on a bed and a chair for each subject individually.
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