Gait analysis by using tri-axial accelerometer of smart phones

Gait has been one of important indicators for healthcare. Traditional methods were often confined in the laboratory and record actions of experimenters by using sophisticated instruments [1]. In 2005, the personal digital assistants (PDAs) is used to measurement and analysis by Mantyjarvi, J. et al.[2]. This manuscript further extends this idea by turning smart phones into gait measurement devices and took advantage of the embedded tri-axial accelerometer as measurement instrument. Three popular signal techniques included the Fourier Transform (FT), Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT), and Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT) would be deployed to analyze the collected data. The experimental study indicated that HHT provide significant results for gait analysis and further demonstrated the utilities of the proposed methods, which made use of low end smart phone as the gait measurement tool.