Acoustic Gaits: Gait Analysis With Footstep Sounds

We describe the acoustic gaits-the natural human gait quantitative characteristics derived from the sound of footsteps as the person walks normally. We introduce the acoustic gait profile, which is obtained from temporal signal analysis of sound of footsteps collected by microphones and illustrate some of the spatio-temporal gait parameters that can be extracted from the acoustic gait profile by using three temporal signal analysis methods-the squared energy estimate, Hilbert transform and Teager-Kaiser energy operator. Based on the statistical analysis of the parameter estimates, we show that the spatio-temporal parameters and gait characteristics obtained using the acoustic gait profile can consistently and reliably estimate a subset of clinical and biometric gait parameters currently in use for standardized gait assessments. We conclude that the Teager-Kaiser energy operator provides the most consistent gait parameter estimates showing the least variation across different sessions and zones. Acoustic gaits use an inexpensive set of microphones with a computing device as an accurate and unintrusive gait analysis system. This is in contrast to the expensive and intrusive systems currently used in laboratory gait analysis such as the force plates, pressure mats and wearable sensors, some of which may change the gait parameters that are being measured.

[1]  Khaled H. Hamed,et al.  Time-frequency analysis , 2003 .

[2]  D. Sutherland The evolution of clinical gait analysis part l: kinesiological EMG. , 2001, Gait & posture.

[3]  Shie Mannor,et al.  Activity and Gait Recognition with Time-Delay Embeddings , 2010, AAAI.

[4]  Björn W. Schuller,et al.  The TUM Gait from Audio, Image and Depth (GAID) database: Multimodal recognition of subjects and traits , 2014, J. Vis. Commun. Image Represent..

[5]  J. F. Kaiser,et al.  On a simple algorithm to calculate the 'energy' of a signal , 1990, International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing.

[6]  Tieniu Tan,et al.  Human identification based on gait , 2005, The Kluwer international series on biometrics.

[7]  Andreas Savvides,et al.  PEM-ID: Identifying people by gait-matching using cameras and wearable accelerometers , 2009, 2009 Third ACM/IEEE International Conference on Distributed Smart Cameras (ICDSC).

[8]  M. Rodgers Dynamic foot biomechanics. , 1995, The Journal of orthopaedic and sports physical therapy.

[9]  F. Horak,et al.  The Balance Evaluation Systems Test (BESTest) to Differentiate Balance Deficits , 2009, Physical Therapy.

[10]  Ronald C Petersen,et al.  Normative spatiotemporal gait parameters in older adults. , 2011, Gait & posture.

[11]  Tao Liu,et al.  Gait Analysis Using Wearable Sensors , 2012, Sensors.

[12]  L. Wolfson,et al.  Gait assessment in the elderly: a gait abnormality rating scale and its relation to falls. , 1990, Journal of gerontology.

[13]  Björn W. Schuller,et al.  Gait-based person identification by spectral, cepstral and energy-related audio features , 2013, 2013 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing.

[14]  Zatsiorky Vm,et al.  Basic kinematics of walking. Step length and step frequency. A review. , 1994 .

[15]  Sudeep Sarkar,et al.  The humanID gait challenge problem: data sets, performance, and analysis , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

[16]  Peter Wittenburg,et al.  ELAN: a Professional Framework for Multimodality Research , 2006, LREC.

[17]  D. Wade,et al.  Outcome measures in acute stroke trials: a systematic review and some recommendations to improve practice. , 2000, Stroke.

[18]  P J Holliday,et al.  Clinical and laboratory measures of postural balance in an elderly population. , 1992, Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation.

[19]  K. M. Gill,et al.  Clinical Gait Assessment in the Neurologically Impaired , 1984 .

[20]  John H Patrick,et al.  Gait analysis to assist walking after stroke , 2007, The Lancet.

[21]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  The smart floor: a mechanism for natural user identification and tracking , 2000, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[22]  Wolfram Burgard,et al.  Recognizing people based on their footsteps using a wearable accelerometer , 2010, 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[23]  Bir Bhanu,et al.  Performance prediction for individual recognition by gait , 2005, Pattern Recognit. Lett..

[24]  Hiroshi Inoue,et al.  A Study on Walk-Recognition by Frequency Analysis of Footsteps , 1999 .

[25]  D H Sutherland,et al.  The evolution of clinical gait analysis part III--kinetics and energy assessment. , 2005, Gait & posture.

[26]  Martin Allen,et al.  Acoustic gait recognition on a staircase , 2010, 2010 World Automation Congress.

[27]  S. Fritz,et al.  White paper: "walking speed: the sixth vital sign". , 2009, Journal of geriatric physical therapy.

[28]  Biing-Hwang Juang,et al.  Person identification using biometric markers from footsteps sound , 2013, INTERSPEECH.

[29]  Neeraj A. Kumar,et al.  Functional Gait Assessment: Concurrent, Discriminative, and Predictive Validity in Community-Dwelling Older Adults , 2010, Physical Therapy.

[30]  S. Studenski,et al.  Bradypedia: Is gait speed ready for clinical use? , 2009, The journal of nutrition, health & aging.

[31]  Biing-Hwang Juang,et al.  Perceptually motivated temporal modeling of footsteps in a cross-environmental detection task , 2013, 2013 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing.

[32]  Mitul Vyas,et al.  Foot pressure distribution during walking in young and old adults , 2005, BMC geriatrics.

[33]  S. Õunpuu The biomechanics of walking and running. , 1994, Clinics in sports medicine.

[34]  Kenton R Kaufman,et al.  Does walking in a virtual environment induce unstable gait? An examination of vertical ground reaction forces. , 2007, Gait & posture.

[35]  John Vanderkooy,et al.  Transfer-Function Measurement with Maximum-Length Sequences , 1989 .

[36]  Jaakko Hakulinen,et al.  THE USE OF WALKING SOUNDS IN SUPPORTING AWARENESS , 2003 .

[37]  L. Sudarsky Gait Disorders in the Elderly , 1990 .

[38]  Alfred D. Grant Gait Analysis: Normal and Pathological Function , 2010 .

[39]  W. Eric L. Grimson,et al.  Gait analysis for recognition and classification , 2002, Proceedings of Fifth IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face Gesture Recognition.

[40]  J. Little,et al.  Recognizing People by Their Gait: The Shape of Motion , 1998 .

[41]  K. M. Gill,et al.  Clinical gait assessment in the neurologically impaired. Reliability and meaningfulness. , 1984, Physical therapy.