Gait analysis via a high-resolution triaxial acceleration sensor based on ZigBee technology

Biomedical rehabilitation technology, especially tele-rehabilitation, surely plays an increasingly important role in future aging society. Meanwhile, ZigBee technology is an enhancement of IEEE 802.15.4 standard by giving a specific definition of the network layer and providing a series of functions for application layer in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Nowadays, ZigBee is being utilized in a wide range of applications, such as telemetry, telecommunication and telemedicine. Therefore, a real-time rehabilitation platform for patients or the aged tele-monitoring is designed in this paper by embedding ZigBee star topology with two main nodes to collect and transmit real-time walking acceleration, which contributes to the computer-assisted rehabilitation project greatly. By analyzing the gait sequences obtained from the terminal device, we could figure out the normal gait, detect the abrupt falling and also achieve the goal of gait recognition efficiently. What´s more, an ECG detector is also reserved on the circuit for us to accomplish the monitoring of health condition of patients or the old wirelessly.