Estimating walking speed, stride length, and stride time using a passive floor based electronic scavenging system

We have developed a floor based personnel detection system to extract gait parameters including walking speed, stride length and stride time, we call it smart carpet. These parameters are validated with a GAITRite Electronic mat. The smart carpet is laid over the GAITRite mat, and subjects walked across the mat for 9 trials each. The data acquisition system of the smart carpet recorded the location of the active sensors, which were later used to extract the gait parameters. An excellent agreement for walking speed, stride length and stride time between the two systems is achieved. The mean percentage error difference for walking speed is 1.43%, stride length is −4.32% and stride time is −5.73%. For walking speed, the standard deviation is 4.39, which emphasizes that 68% of the error is within a 5%. We compared our work to the work done by a research group who used a vision based Kinect and web cameras system with excellent agreement.