A dual-polarized Doppler Radar system for fall detection in an indoor environment

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant Falls are a leading cause of injuries and deaths among older adults OAs and will be an increasing public health concern given projections of future increases in the number of OAs in the US Fall detection and or surveillance systems are needed to enhance an OAandapos s confidence and independence and to facilitate rapid post fall responses This project will develop a low cost fall detection system to facilitate passive and wireless fall detection in diverse indoor environments and which can be easily translated into a market product Central to this system is the use of dual polarized Doppler radar an enhancement over existing radar systems for fall detection and which also overcomes several limitations of alternative approaches e g dependency on patient compliance with wearable sensors privacy concerns with video based systems This project involves three Aims In Aim we will develop the system by designing a dual polarized antenna for application to realistic indoor use using a circularly polarized stub loaded helix antenna for transmitting and a dual linearly polarized receiving antenna Performance of the designed antenna system will be assessed then integrated into a commercial software defined radio and subsequently tested to characterize signal detection range and angular coverage and to determine the best installation location In Aim experimental data will be obtained for simulated falls and activities of daily living from among a large and diverse sample of human participants Using these data in Aim we will develop and evaluate a new fall detection algorithm This algorithm will employ multiple classification technologies and decision fusion methods to benefit from the rich information provided by the proposed radar system The current project is novel in the use of dual polarization and is targeted to harness the upcoming spectrum sharing band It is innovative in taking advantage of polarization diversity in a fall detection algorithm which is expected to decrease false alarms and also in emphasizing the discrimination of critical vs non critical falls An extensive experimental database will be developed including a wider range of activities and events including slip trip induced falls and broader representation of inter individual diversity than in many prior studies By design the proposed system is expected be an effective low cost pervasive indoor fall detection system with a small form factor and that provides less intrusive richer and more reliable information e g low false alarm rate than alternative approaches for fall detection PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE This project will develop a novel low cost fall detection system based on dual polarized Doppler radar obtain data for a wide range of simulated falls and activities of daily living and develop and assess the performance of a new fall detection algorithm exploiting the polarization diversity obtained from the noted radar Results are expected to demonstrate strong performance of the system in terms of detecting falls with low false alarm rates and distinguishing critical from non critical fall events Successful development of this system can help overcome several limitations in existing alternatives and help address the current and growing public health concern regarding falls among older adults