Hokkaido University Research Profiles

Japanese
Information and Communication

Accelerometer to Identify Where You Stumble

To prevent falls in elderly people

To avoid serious injuries due to falls, we studied a system that can search places with a potential danger of stumbling, which is a sign of a fall, based on people’s daily activities. The system uses an accelerometer embedded in sandals to identify the stumbling point, and an infrared sensor network on the ceiling to identify the location of the stumbling point.

Content of research

According to a survey by the Tokyo Fire Department in 2014, approximately 80% of all cases of emergency transportation of elderly people are due to accidents involving falls. Since their consciousness cannot keep up with their declining physical abilities, they stumble over small steps, footwear, or clothing. Much research is done on the detection of falls, but it is too late after the actual fall. Therefore, we decided to eliminate the causes of falls by detecting the areas where people often stumble. Wearable devices have problems with forgetfulness and psychological resistance to wearing it, while non-wearable devices such as surveillance cameras have problems with blind spots and privacy protection. In this study, an acceleration sensor is attached to normal sandals to detect a stumble, while a network of infrared sensors installed on the ceiling works in conjunction to identify the location of the stumble. In our experiments, we were able to distinguish falls easily, but the accuracy rate of distinguishing stumbling from normal walking is currently only about 1/4, so we hope to improve the accuracy in the future.

Potential for social implementation

  • ・By simply having each person wear special slippers at the home or care facility of the elderly person, we hope to identify places where it is easy to fall and eliminate the causes of falling.

Appealing points to industry and local governments

What is important is to confirm, in cooperation with local governments, the effectiveness of the system at actual sites where elderly people gather, and to obtain feedback to overcome the problem. We do not have the experience or financial resources to conduct field tests. This ceiling-mounted infrared sensor is expected to have a wide range of applications in preventive medicine in addition to stumbling detection, because it does not require any cooperation from the residents while taking privacy into consideration.

2022/5/27Released