pp. 291-303
S&M3519 Research Paper of Special Issue https://doi.org/10.18494/SAM4648 Published: January 31, 2024 Real-time Fall Prediction Using Kinect Sensor with Random Sample Consensus Algorithm [PDF] Po-Tong Wang, Yu-Jen Chen, and Jia-Shing Sheu (Received July 11, 2023; Accepted December 18, 2023) Keywords: Kinect, fall detection, random forest classifier, random sample consensus (RANSAC), Hough transform
Falls are a leading cause of unintentional injury and death and pose a significant risk to individuals living alone, particularly older adults. The World Health Organization reports that approximately 684000 fatal falls occur annually, and that timely fall detection is essential to enable prompt treatment and mitigate harm. To address this challenge, we propose a novel in-home fall detection system that uses the Kinect V2 sensor instead of a wearable device. The system can promptly alert a person’s caregivers or family members when it detects a fall, enabling timely assistance. The Kinect V2 sensor captures depth frames and performs skeleton tracking, and body parts in single-depth image pixels are identified using a random forest classifier. v-disparity images, the Hough transform, and the random sample consensus algorithm are used to identify the floor in depth images, and falls are predicted by analyzing the vertical accelerations of 10 joints in the human skeleton. The system can issue an alarm up to 0.5 s before a fall, enabling preventive measures to be taken. In experiments, the proposed system was effective in accurately predicting falls and hence, has potential to improve fall risk management in caregiving environments.
Corresponding author: Jia-Shing SheuThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Cite this article Po-Tong Wang, Yu-Jen Chen, and Jia-Shing Sheu, Real-time Fall Prediction Using Kinect Sensor with Random Sample Consensus Algorithm, Sens. Mater., Vol. 36, No. 1, 2024, p. 291-303. |