Analysis of Micro-Doppler Signature of

Humanoid Robot Motions for Health

Monitoring
Nghia Tran*, Ankit Bhargava, and Ozlem Kilic
The Catholic University of America
Washington, DC, USA

USNC-URSI National Radio Science Meeting

January 4-7, 2017, Boulder, CO
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 Outline
Motivation
Previous works
Objective
Proposed System for Humanoid Robot Motion
Detection
Experimental results
Conclusion

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 Motivation

Detecting human motions without

physical contact are essential in a
number of applications especially in
health monitoring for senior citizen.

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 Our previous works
r
Eo r
RADAR
Eh -r
Detection of human motions r
Eradar
HUMAN

RADAR
E0
Detection of human respiratory rate
and heartbeat r
Eradar
Eobject - radar

Using full-wave methods (MoM, FMM, MLFMA) on HPC Cluster (CPU+GPU)

Dang Vinh, Nghia Tran, and Ozlem Kilic. "Scalable Fast Multipole Method for Large-Scale Electromagnetic Scattering Problems on 4
Heterogeneous CPU-GPU Clusters." IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 15, pp. 1807 - 1810, Mar. 2016.
 Human Walking Model

Input: Velocity v, Height of

human H

Temporal and Spatial

Characteristics Tcycle, Rcycle

Boulic, Ronan, Nadia Magnenat Thalmann, and Daniel Thalmann. "A global human walking model with real-time kinematic personification." The
visual computer 6.6 (1990): 344-358. 5
 Human Walking Model

Input: Velocity v, Height of Translations and

human H rotations of joints

Temporal and Spatial

Characteristics Tcycle, Rcycle

Update a position of
every joint at every time
t

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 Human Walking Model

Input: Velocity v, Height of Translations and

human H rotations of joints

H = 1.8m
V = 1m/s

Temporal and Spatial

Characteristics Tcycle, Rcycle

Update a position of
every joint at every time
t

to = 0(s) t = Tcycle (s)

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xo =0(m) xo =Rcycle(m)
 Human Scattering Model
Human body parts are modelled by using ellipsoids between 16 joints.

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 Human Scattering Model
A full-wave technique, Method of Moments (MoMs) enhanced by Muti-level Fast Multipole
Algorithm (MLFMA), is implemented to account for :
- Mutual coupling effects between each parts of human body.
- Ground effects.
It is implemented on Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) Clusters.

FMM

Garcia-Rubia, J. M., Kilic, O., Dang, V., Nguyen, Q. M., & Tran, N. (2014). Analysis of Moving Human Micro-Doppler Signature in Forest
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Environments. Progress In Electromagnetics Research, 148, 1-14.
 Human Motion Activities

Walking Limping Falling on Knee

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 Experimental Setup Validation
University of Tennessee - Knoxville

Walking Limping Falling on Knee

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 Micro-Doppler Signature
Micro-Doppler signature is a distinctive characteristic of an
objects movement, rotation or oscillation, called micro-motion.
To analyze Micro-Doppler signature, we use Short-time Fourier
Transform (STFT) to plot a spectrogram.

S = STFT{Er (t)}(t ,w ) =
-
Er (t)w(t-t )e- jw tdt

Micro-Doppler Signature of an Oscillating Pendulum

400

300
Free Pendulum
-10

Radar 200
-20
100
Doppler (Hz)
0 -30

Er(t) -100
-40
V =0 V =0 -200
Vmax -50
-300

-400 -60
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Time (s) 12
 Micro-Doppler Signature
Micro-Doppler signature is a distinctive characteristic of an
objects movement, rotation or oscillation, called micro-motion.
To analyze Micro-Doppler signature, we use Short-time Fourier
Transform (STFT) to plot a spectrogram.

S = STFT{Er (t)}(t ,w ) =
-
Er (t)w(t-t )e- jw tdt

Micro-Doppler signature of Human Walking

-60
Left foot
Left ankle

200 torso
-70
Doppler (Hz)

0 -80

-200 -90

-100
0 500 1000
Time (s) 13
 Problems

There is still mismatch between the simulation and experimental

results.
The main reason is from setup parameters between the
simulation and experiment.
The solutions :
- Attach the sensors on human body and use Vicon cameras to
detect the positions for every joints on human body ( cost around
50K)

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 Objectives
- In this project, we try to use the
humanoid robot for motion detection by
analyzing micro-Doppler signatures.

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https://www.ald.softbankrobotics.com/en/cool-robots/nao
Proposed System

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 What is NAO Robot?

NAO is a 58-cm tall, 5-kg humanoid

robot developed by Aldebaran Robotics.
His gait (manner of walking) can be
altered to match a person who is
limping or even falling
We are using Nao to test a new kind of
gait analysis using microwaves

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Controlling NAO Robot

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 Basic Motions-Walking

A well-defined algorithm for

walking is provided by the
company.
Consistent sinusoidal motion
indicating regular walk
Extremely unstable and will
fall easily on uneven terrain

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 Basic Motions-Limping

The walking algorithm is

modified to achieve limping
motions.
The stride length of the right leg
is reduced.
The frequency of the right step is
also reduced.
A body roll are added to mimic
the instability of a limping
motion.
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 Basic Motions-Falling
The robot is programmed to
stiffen all joints at once.
A forward fall was ensured
by forcing the joints at each
ankle to move abruptly an
angle of 57.30 degrees.

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 Results-Walking

Stand for 1s

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 Results-Walking

transition for 1s

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Results-Walking

Walking in 5 cycles

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Results-Walking

Stand

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 Results-Walking

1 walking cycle

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 Results-Limping

Transition for 3s

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 Results-Limping

Transition for 3s Limp in 11 cycles

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 Results-Limping

Transition for 3s Limp in 11 cycles Transition for 5s

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 Results-Limping

1 cycle

Transition for 3s Limp in 11 cycles Transition for 5s

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 Result-Falling

Stand for 6s

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 Result-Falling

Stand for 6s Transition for 2s

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 Result-Falling

Stand for 6s Transition for 2s walk in 2 cycles

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 Result-Falling

Stand for 6s Transition for 2s fall

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 Conclusion

We propose the system to detect and

distinguish motions of humanoid robot (NAO).
Regular walking, limping and falling can be
distinguished based on micro-Doppler
signatures.

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Thank you for listening

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