This pilot study aimed to investigate the implementation of supervised classifiers and a neural network for the recognition of activities carried out by Individuals with Lower Limb Amputation (ILLAs), as well as individuals without gait impairment, in free living conditions. Eight individuals with no gait impairments and four ILLAs wore a thigh-based accelerometer and walked on an improvised route in the vicinity of their homes across a variety of terrains. Various machine learning classifiers were trained and tested for recognition of walking activities. Additional investigations were made regarding the detail of the activity label versus classifier accuracy and whether the classifiers were capable of being trained exclusively on non-impaired individuals' data and could recognize physical activities carried out by ILLAs. At a basic level of label detail, Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) networks were able to acquire 77-78% mean classification accuracy, which fell with increased label detail. Classifiers trained on individuals without gait impairment could not recognize activities carried out by ILLAs. This investigation presents the groundwork for a HAR system capable of recognizing a variety of walking activities, both for individuals with no gait impairments and ILLAs.
Keywords: human activity recognition; lower limb amputation; lower limb prosthetics; machine learning; physical activity.