A novel remote sensing technique for recognizing human gait based on the measurement of induced electrostatic current

In this paper, we propose an effective non-contact method for the monitoring of human gait including stepping, walking and running by measuring the induced electrostatic signals. Based on the kinematics principles and theories of electrodynamics in the view of capacitance variation, we analyze the characteristics of induced electrostatic current on electrode generated by human body motion without the need to attach electrode on human body to deduce the detection equations of human gait. The experimental results of human body motion recognition match the theoretical analysis well, and the obvious biped motion feature of induced electrostatic signal waveform proves that adopting this method in human body monitoring applications benefits in the low false-alarm rate, which verifies our expectation that the adoption of non-contact electrostatic detection technique will open up a new area of remote biometric measurements which can be applied in the field of human machine interface, health care and security.

► Human gait can be recognized by measuring induced electrostatic signals.
► Remote electrostatic detection benefits in the low false-alarm rate and simple deployment.
► The detection equations of human gait is deduced.