A Smart Radar System for Automatic Functional Capacity Tests
Abstract
Functional capacity tests are of high importance for the elderly population. These tests measure the gait speed and compare it to reference values related to various pathologies. For a continuous in-home monitoring of the gait speed, we propose the use of a Doppler radar to automatically perform the functional capacity tests. The proposed approach consists of two phases; a first phase where the radar distinguishes three sections, namely first walk, turn, and second walk. Then, a second phase where the obtained signal is processed to evaluate the gait speed of the person. Experiments are conducted on ten subjects with three different paces in a total of 180 walking patterns. The gait speed is validated using a Vicon system with a correlation equal to 0.9788.