Integrating pressure and accelerometer sensing for improved activity recognition on smartphones

The purpose of this article is to explore how sensors work in a smartphone with respect to activity recognition and more specifically, how a pressure sensor can improve the results if integrated with an accelerometer. In order to show that, a set of experiments were performed on a user who uses the Samsung SIII. The user was asked to perform a set of daily activities such as standing up, jogging, walking up and down the stairs. The results show that a detection of a change in the pressure that is being subjected to the smartphone would give an indication of the user´s altitude and activity. This indication helped in improving the activity recognition when it is combined with the data obtained from the accelerometer.