This study presents a useful walking analyzer system (WAS). The setup for acquiring data is a small wearable personal computer-assisted system. It employs a lithium battery-powered gyro sensor. While walking, the wearable personal computer (WPC) is worn like a wrist- watch, the small sensor is fixed to a person's back near the center of body gravity, and batteries are inserted into a person's waist pouch. When a switch of WPC is turned on, relative three angles, i.e., roll, pitch and yaw, and accelerations in X, Y, Z axis of the person's back are recorded at 30 Hz. The patients who wear dentures were selected as subjects at the department of geriatric dentistry in a dental hospital. It was observed that in the case of patient wearing dentures, the displacement of angles and accelerations of back in walking had better rhythm compared to those without dentures. As an effective analyzer system for walking stability, a power spectral analysis is used utilizing auto regressive modeling. In case of patient not wearing dentures, their power spectrum densities of the three angles and accelerations of back fluctuation were wavy, showing unstable walking. In case of patient wearing dentures, their power spectrum densities were approximately close to 1/f3 (f: frequency) fluctuation, showing stable walking in all direction. Using this WAS, everyone can find out one's walking stability easily in rehabilitation and physical fitness
Index Terms:
1/f fluctuation, Gyro sensor, Walking analyzer system, Wearable PC
Citation:
Masako Tsuruoka, Ryosuke Shibasaki, Yoshifumi Yasuoka, Shunji Murai, Shunsuke Minakuchi, Yuriko Tsuruoka, "Analysis of 1/f Fluctuation in Walking Using Gyro Sensor System," cbms, pp.77, 13th IEEE Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems (CBMS'00), 2000