Gait classification by support vector machine

Abstract

This paper presents a simple model-free gait extraction approach for human identification by using Support Vector Machine. The proposed approach consists of three parts: extraction of human gait features from enhanced human silhouette, smoothing process on extracted gait features and classification by Support Vector Machine (SVM). The gait features extracted are height, width, crotch height, step-size of the human silhouette and joint trajectories. To improve the classification performance, two of these extracted gait features are smoothened before the classification process in order to alleviate the effect of outliers. The proposed approach has been applied on SOTON covariate database, which is comprised of eleven subjects walking bidirectional in a controlled indoor environment with thirteen different covariate factors that vary in terms of apparel, walking speed, shoe types and carrying objects. From the experimental results, it can be concluded that the proposed approach is effective in human identification from a distance. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.