Using Accelerometer Signals to Classify Prehensile Hand Movements

Date

Authors

Sheth, Nirav

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Abstract

Prehensile movement is crucial for activities of daily living (ADLs) such as grooming and self-care. In humans, the hand is the primary device utilized for prehensile movements. Recognizing the relationship between a hand's prehensile patterns and accelerometer data can be instrumental in developing assisted and enhanced functional hand devices. An accelerometer measures the linear acceleration acting on the part of the body where the sensor is placed. This thesis demonstrates the usefulness of several features, based on accelerometer data, towards recognizing prehensile movement of the hand while performing 47 movements, grips and neutral rest. Particular emphasis is given to measuring the use- fulness of the features to identify movement transitions. A random forest classifier is used to recognize motion onset and offset as well as various phases of movement. The results showed that the accelerometer-based features were effective in recognizing motion onset and offset and moments of transitions. However, they were not as effective in recognizing various phases of prehensile movement.

Description

Keywords

Accelerometer, Prehensile patterns, Random forest, Hand movements

Citation