A Self-Organizing Approach to Activity Recognition with Wireless Sensors

In this paper, we describe an approach to activity recognition, which is based on a self-organizing, ad hoc network of body-worn sensors. It makes best use of the available sensors, and autonomously adapts to dynamically varying sensor setups in terms of changing sensor availabilities, characteristics and on-body locations. For a widespread use of activity recognition systems, such an opportunistic approach is better suited than a fixed and application-specific deployment of sensor systems, as it unburdens the user from placing specific sensors at pre-defined locations on his body. The main contribution of this paper is the presentation of an interaction model for the self-organization of sensor nodes, which enables a cooperative recognition of activities according to the demands of a user's mobile device. We implemented it with an embedded system platform, and conducted an evaluation showing the feasibility and performance of our approach.