FALL DETECTION IN THE ELDERLY USING

NODE MCU

Abstract—Falling down, for the elderly is always a risk. A

minor mishap, such as tripping over a rug or slipping on a
damp floor, might drastically alter their life. Many elderly
people get bone fractures each year as a result of falls. A
broken bone might trigger more significant health issues in
elderly adults, which can result in long-term impairment. If
they fall, we must assist them as soon as we can to prevent any
such mishaps. The issue is that we can't always monitor their
behaviour. The significant increase in the older population and
the high risk of falls make the automatic fall detection system
crucial. In order to distinguish falls from regular activities,
existing fall detection systems that use accelerometers as the
detector are frequently built using an empirical acceleration
threshold. It is possible to determine an ideal detection
threshold that achieves the desired false alarm rate while
enhancing the detection likelihood. To address the
aforementioned issue, we will develop a fall detection
prototypein this project that will send an alert to your mobile
phone when the fall is detected.
Keywords—component, formatting, style, styling, insert
(key words)
I.INTRODUCTION
A wearable fall-detection device has been created to
detect falls using a proposed fall-detection algorithm.
The growing aging population, especially those over 65
years old,are at risk of falls due to declining physical
abilities.If an elder person falls and becomes unconscious
or unable to move, they may be harmed by the fall's
injuries. Thus, the development of a system to
automatically detect falls in the elderly and other patients
is actively being studied. TheInternet of Things (IoT) is a
growing concern with the seamless interaction among
objects, sensors, and computing devices. Smart
embedded objects, such as fall-detection sensors with
wireless communication, will also become an important
part of the IoT. The identified fall-detection systems can
be divided into two categories: context-aware systems
and wearable devices. The wearable device-based
approach uses clothing with embedded sensors to detect
the body's motion and location. The benefits of wearable
devicesinclude cost efficiency, ease of installation, setup,
and operation. In this project, a fall-detection algorithm
using 3- axis acceleration is proposed, with fall-feature
parameters calculated from the 3-axis acceleration
applied to a simple threshold method.
most of the research work in fall detection deals with
applying supervised classification methods. Most of
these techniques need training data for falls and
employ either domain knowledge or data analysis
techniques to compute threshold(s) for their
identification. The problem with thresholding
techniques for fall detection is that it is very difficult to
adapt thresholds to new types of falls and generalize
them across different people. If sufficient fall data are
available, one-class classifiers can be trained on falls to
reject normal activities. However, in realistic settings
such a strategy is highly unlikely because the
availability of sufficient real falldata is difficult . Zhang
et al] train OSVM from falls and outliers from non-fall
ADL and s h o w t h a t f a l l s c a n b e d e t e c t e d
effectively.They test four OCC methods; K- center,
Knearest neighbor, OSVM and single class minimax
probability machine (SCMPM) and find that SCMPM
achieves the overall best performance among them. Han
et al propose to use wireless signal propagation by
employing the time variability and special diversity of
Channel State Information as the indicator of human
activities. The problem of fall detection is a good
example for imbalanced learning because the data for
normal activities are easy to collect and sufficiently
available in comparison to falls. Traditional supervised
algorithms expect balanced datasets with equal
misclassification costs for different classes. However,
these algorithms fail to represent characteristics of the
data and provide unfavorable accuracies when
presented with imbalanced dataset.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

A simple approach is analysed in the paper “Review of
Fall Detection Techniques: A Data Availability
Perspective”, by Shehroz SKhan and Jesse Hoey, where

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Several approaches have been proposed for abnormal
activity recognition using the computer vision sensors.This
approach is simple; however, choosing a threshold remains
challenging. However, it is not clear from their work how
many iterations are needed to terminate the process of
outlier detection. Their model assumes that the normal
activities data contains unusual events and guarantees one
outlier per iteration that could result in high false
alarm rate. The general principle to identify an unusual
event is to vary the covariance of the model of normal
events to determine the interval with the highest likelihood
where events can be classified as ‘not normal’. To model
dynamic detection of abnormal events, they add a new
factor to the existing SLDS model by inflating the system
noise covariance of the normal dynamics. The sensor data is
collected using various probes connected to each baby. The
computation of the factor related to increasing the
covariance remains challenging and is critical in this
application. The general principle to identify an unusual
event is to vary the covariance of the model of normal
events to determine the interval with the highest likelihood
where events can be classified as ‘not normal’. To model
dynamic detection of abnormal events, they add a new
factor to the existing SLDS model by inflating the system
noise covariance of the normal dynamics. The sensor
data is collected using various probes connected to each
baby. The computation of the factor related to increasing
the covariance remains challenging and is critical in this
application
III. METHODOLOGY
Falls are a common occurrence and can have serious
consequences, especially for the elderly and patients. To
prevent or minimize the harm caused by falls, detecting
them as quickly as possible is crucial. There are four
types of falls: fall from sleeping, fall from sitting, fall
from walking or standing on the floor, and fall from
standing on supports. Although these types of falls share
some common characteristics, they possess significantly
different characteristics.To detect falls, various methods
have been developed based on the sensors and
principles used. Three main approaches are wearable
devices, ambiance devices, and camera-based methods.
Wearable devices can be further divided into posture and
motion devices, while ambiance devices can be further
divided into presence and posture devices.
Camera-based methods can be divided into three classes
based on the principles used: inactivity detection, 2D body
shape change analysis, and 3D head motion analysis. Each
approach has its advantages and disadvantages and may be
more suitable for specific situations or populations.
Many efforts have been made in the development of fall
detection technology due to the high demand and potential
market value. Numerous products and literature exist on
the topic, and further research is ongoing to improve the
accuracy and reliability of fall detection methods. By
continuing to develop and improve these technologies, we
can reduce the harm caused by falls and improve the
quality of life for those at risk.This project involves the use
of a microcontroller( NodeMCU) which is connected to the
node MPU6050 (accelerometer and gyroscope sensor).
When a person falls there is a sudden change in the
acceleration and orientation, there is an increase in the
acceleration. The heart rate for the same is monitored. If
thedetected heart rate is less than normal then a notification
is sent on the app. The message is sent to the caretaker
andthe buzzer goes off to inform people.
IV. TECH STACK
A) Software
The app was developed in Android Studio and was
supported with a database in firebase. It is an integrated
development environment for developing new apps for
different purposes. And it supports many programming
languages eg: java, C++, and C. For the listed features, 3
libraries additionally have been imported including the
mail and its authentication libraries, externally to make the
working app more accurate and efficient. To save the data
from hackers and other malware we are also using Data
security protocols such as Encryption, Firewalls,
Cryptographic Agility, Vulnerability scanning. The android
app code was written in Java with XML involved in GUI
designing. The above decision is made on its flexibility
and cross-platform compatibility.We have also used two
external dependencies named TXTLocal which helps in
sending real-time sms to given phone no.s. We have
initiated the automated sms upon not meeting the
necessaryconditions followed by the buzzer alerting.

 B) Hardware
This section discusses the basic theory of components used
for this work.

Node MCU
Node Micro Controller Unit is an open-source software
and hardware development environment that is built around
a very inexpensive System-on-a-Chip (SoC) called the
ESP8266. MCU stands for Micro Controller Unit - which
really means it is a computer on a single chip. A
microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor
cores) along with memory and programmable input/output
peripherals.

MPU6050
The MPU6050 has an embedded 3-axis MEMS gyroscope,
and a 3-axis MEMS accelerometer. It is very useful for
As soon as the heart rate of the patient goes low a notification is sent
some motion detection. This small module integrates the
on the app in the following manner
logic level converter circuit（which makes it compatible
with the 3.3V-5V voltage level) together with the
MPU6050 sensor.

Pulse sensor
This sensor has two surfaces, on the first surface, the light-
emitting diode & ambient light sensor is connected.
Similarly, on the second surface, the circuit is connected
which is accountable for the noise cancellation&
amplificationThe working of this sensor can be done by
connecting it from the fingertip or human ear to the
Arduino board. So that heart rate can be easily calculated.

As soon as the rate goes below the threshold it sends the notification
of fall being detected.

V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS:

There is also an option to call the Ambulance directly from the app in
case of emergency.


References
The app also has the option of showing nearby hospitals for
assistance
VI. CONCLUSION:
Many cases of elderly individuals falling due to numerous
causes, such as heart attacks, go undiscovered since there
isn't a simple gadget available to them that can detect their
fall and send a notification to the persons concerned. A
device like this is very necessary for today's culture
because most people are too busy at work to see their
elderly relatives, and it is nearly difficult to find out if
anything horrible happens because senior folks are not very
tech-savvy. The gadget is used to send an SMS to the
designated users. It relies on the MPU6050 sensor, which
combines an accelerometer and gyroscope to record
acceleration values.
VII.FUTURE SCOPE
The market is also being affected by the increase in
demand for fall detection systems based on
wearable and smartphone technology to provide
improved access to aid in the event of a fall. The
industry is also developing as a result of rising
medical spending costs and rising demand for
multimodal technology.
Also, the market for fall detection systems is
positively impacted by rising urbanisation, lifestyle
changes, an increase in expenditures, and higher
consumer spending.
Also, during the forecast period of 2022 to 2029,
prominent players who offer smartwatches with fall
detection provide lucrative prospects to market participants.
Moreover, the market will grow due to the development of
fall detection technologies based on Wi-Fi and machine
learning.
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