Privacy Preserving Fall Detection Based on Simple Human Silhouette Extraction and a Linear Support Vector Machine

Abstract

The paper presents a novel fast, real-time and privacy protecting algorithm for fall detection based on geometric properties of the human silhouette and a linear support vector machine. The algorithm uses infrared and visible light imagery in order to detect the human. A simple real-time human silhouette extraction algorithm has been developed and used to extract features for training of the support vector machine. The achieved sensitivity and specificity of the proposed approach are over 97% which match state of the art research in the area of fall detection. The developed solution uses low-cost hardware components and open source software library and is suitable for usage in assistive systems for the home or nursing homes.

Keywords

• Ambient assisted living
• Fall detection
• Support vector machine