Survey of Smart Technologies for Fall Motion Detection: Techniques, Algorithms and Tools

The aging population has become a world-wide social concern. The number of people living alone and experiencing falls is increasing. This is a major health risk, especially among the elderly; thus, the early detection of fall motion is of great significance. A smart home care system is needed to monitor abnormal events. This paper first conducts a survey of existing smart systems and techniques in detecting fall motion in human movement, including the emergence of new natural user interface (NUI) devices and systems in the consumer market. Secondly, the paper categorizes smart technologies for fall motion detection into three main technological groups: acoustic and ambient sensor-based, kinematic sensor-based, and lastly the computer vision and NUI. An insightful discussion of each category’s advantages and disadvantages is provided. The findings show a promising research direction of integrating the computer vision with the novel consumer-grade NUI device, such as Kinect, in achieving of an affordable and practical smart home fall motion detection system.

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