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.