High-frequency spectral energy map estimation based gait analysis system using a depth camera for pathology detection

Abstract

This paper presents a new and simple gait analysis system, from a depth camera placed in front of a subject walking on a treadmill, capable of detecting a healthy gait from an impaired one. Our system relies on the fact that a normal or healthy walk typically exhibits a smooth motion (depth) signal, at each pixel with less high-frequency spectral energy content than an impaired or abnormal walk. Thus, the estimation of a map showing the location and the amplitude of the highfrequency spectral energy (HFSE), for each subject, allows clinicians to visually quantify and localize the different impaired body parts of the patient and to quickly detect a possible disease. Even if the HFSE maps obtained are clearly intuitive for a rapid clinical diagnosis, the proposed system makes an automatic classification between normal gaits and those who are not with success rates ranging from 88.23% to 92.15 %.