Towards Human Posture Detection Based on Differential Measurements Using Wearable Barometric Pressure Sensors

Nico Graumüller, Constantin Gis, Franziska Geiger, Iman Soodmand, Maeruan Kebbach, Rainer Bader, Christian Haubelt, Florian Grützmacher

2025

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 separate 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.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Graumüller N., Gis C., Geiger F., Soodmand I., Kebbach M., Bader R., Haubelt C. and Grützmacher F. (2025). Towards Human Posture Detection Based on Differential Measurements Using Wearable Barometric Pressure Sensors. In Proceedings of the 18th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: BIOSIGNALS; ISBN 978-989-758-731-3, SciTePress, pages 1002-1011. DOI: 10.5220/0013273000003911

in Bibtex Style

@conference{biosignals25,
author={Nico Graumüller and Constantin Gis and Franziska Geiger and Iman Soodmand and Maeruan Kebbach and Rainer Bader and Christian Haubelt and Florian Grützmacher},
title={Towards Human Posture Detection Based on Differential Measurements Using Wearable Barometric Pressure Sensors},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 18th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: BIOSIGNALS},
year={2025},
pages={1002-1011},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013273000003911},
isbn={978-989-758-731-3},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 18th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies - Volume 1: BIOSIGNALS
TI - Towards Human Posture Detection Based on Differential Measurements Using Wearable Barometric Pressure Sensors
SN - 978-989-758-731-3
AU - Graumüller N.
AU - Gis C.
AU - Geiger F.
AU - Soodmand I.
AU - Kebbach M.
AU - Bader R.
AU - Haubelt C.
AU - Grützmacher F.
PY - 2025
SP - 1002
EP - 1011
DO - 10.5220/0013273000003911
PB - SciTePress