Radar walk detection in the apartments of elderly

Abstract

Seniors want to live more independent lifestyles. This comes with some risks including dwindling health and major injuries due to falling. A factor that has been studied and seen to have a correlation to fall risk is change in gait speed. Our goal is to create a passive system that monitors the gait of elderly so that assessments can be given by caregivers if gait changes do occur. This paper will cover a method of using pulse-Doppler radar to detect when walks occur. In unscripted living environments, we are able to detect valid walks. The system does miss walks during the day, but when walks are detected, they are actually valid walks 91.8% of the time using a large data base of radar signals captured in living environments.