Fall detector using discrete wavelet decomposition and SVM classifier

Abstract

This paper presents the design process and the results of a novel fall detector designed and constructed at the Faculty of Electronics, Military University of Technology. High sensitivity and low false alarm rates were achieved by using four independent sensors of varying physical quantities and sophisticated methods of signal processing and data mining. The manuscript discusses the study background, hardware development, alternative algorithms used for the sensor data processing and fusion for identification of the most efficient solution and the final results from testing the Android application on smartphone. The test was performed in four 6-h sessions (two sessions with female participants at the age of 28 years, one session with male participants aged 28 years and one involving a man at the age of 49 years) and showed correct detection of all 40 simulated falls with only three false alarms. Our results confirmed the sensitivity of the proposed algorithm to be 100% with a nominal false alarm rate (one false alarm per 8 h).