Design of Ensemble Stacked Auto-Encoder for Classification of Horse Gaits with MEMS Inertial Sensor Technology

Development of a Low-Cost Markerless Optical Motion Capture System for Gait Analysis and Anthropometric Parameter Quantification

Technological advancements have expanded the range of methods for capturing human body motion, including solutions involving inertial sensors (IMUs) and optical alternatives. However, the rising complexity and costs associated with commercial solutions have prompted the exploration of more cost-effective alternatives. This paper presents a markerless optical motion capture system using a RealSense depth camera and intelligent computer vision algorithms. It facilitates precise posture assessment, the real-time calculation of joint angles, and acquisition of subject-specific anthropometric data for gait analysis. The proposed system stands out for its simplicity and affordability in comparison to complex commercial solutions. The gathered data are stored in comma-separated value (CSV) files, simplifying subsequent analysis and data mining. Preliminary tests, conducted in controlled laboratory environments and employing a commercial MEMS-IMU system as a reference, revealed a maximum relative error of 7.6% in anthropometric measurements, with a maximum absolute error of 4.67 cm at average height. Stride length measurements showed a maximum relative error of 11.2%. Static joint angle tests had a maximum average error of 10.2%, while dynamic joint angle tests showed a maximum average error of 9.06%. The proposed optical system offers sufficient accuracy for potential application in areas such as rehabilitation, sports analysis, and entertainment.

Inertial Sensor Technologies-Their Role in Equine Gait Analysis, a Review

Objective gait analysis provides valuable information about the locomotion characteristics of sound and lame horses. Due to their high accuracy and sensitivity, inertial measurement units (IMUs) have gained popularity over objective measurement techniques such as force plates and optical motion capture (OMC) systems. IMUs are wearable sensors that measure acceleration forces and angular velocities, providing the possibility of a non-invasive and continuous monitoring of horse gait during walk, trot, or canter during field conditions. The present narrative review aimed to describe the inertial sensor technologies and summarize their role in equine gait analysis. The literature was searched using general terms related to inertial sensors and their applicability, gait analysis methods, and lameness evaluation. The efficacy and performance of IMU-based methods for the assessment of normal gait, detection of lameness, analysis of horse-rider interaction, as well as the influence of sedative drugs, are discussed and compared with force plate and OMC techniques. The collected evidence indicated that IMU-based sensor systems can monitor and quantify horse locomotion with high accuracy and precision, having comparable or superior performance to objective measurement techniques. IMUs are reliable tools for the evaluation of horse-rider interactions. The observed efficacy and performance of IMU systems in equine gait analysis warrant further research in this population, with special focus on the potential implementation of novel techniques described and validated in humans.

Posture Recognition Using Ensemble Deep Models under Various Home Environments

This paper is concerned with posture recognition using ensemble convolutional neural networks (CNNs) in home environments. With the increasing number of elderly people living alone at home, posture recognition is very important for helping elderly people cope with sudden danger. Traditionally, to recognize posture, it was necessary to obtain the coordinates of the body points, depth, frame information of video, and so on. In conventional machine learning, there is a limitation in recognizing posture directly using only an image. However, with advancements in the latest deep learning, it is possible to achieve good performance in posture recognition using only an image. Thus, we performed experiments based on VGGNet, ResNet, DenseNet, InceptionResNet, and Xception as pre-trained CNNs using five types of preprocessing. On the basis of these deep learning methods, we finally present the ensemble deep model combined by majority and average methods. The experiments were performed by a posture database constructed at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Korea. This database consists of 51,000 images with 10 postures from 51 home environments. The experimental results reveal that the ensemble system by InceptionResNetV2s with five types of preprocessing shows good performance in comparison to other combination methods and the pre-trained CNN itself.