Walking Motion Analysis Using 3D Acceleration Sensors

Human walking motion shows various information including involuntary behaviors such as walking patterns, ground conditions, health conditions, as well as conscious actions such as system control and communication. Such information can be used to establish interface with ubiquitous network systems. Therefore, human walking motion detection plays a key role for such interface. Human motion including walking motion can be analyzed with the motion capturing systems. However, those systems require spatial hardware such as sensors and cameras, and special environments for the measurement. Therefore, it is not suitable for the everyday life. Video image analysis is also proposed to trace the human motion as an alternative approach. However, this is not suitable for the daily use, either. This paper proposes a new approach towards the estimation of human walking motion using wearable 3D acceleration sensors and several other sensors, which can be used in everyday life. Compared to the typical approach using the motion capturing system to capture and track human motion, this paper discusses the feasibility of the proposed approach using the walking motion simulation.