Radar Network for Gait Monitoring: Technology and Validation

In recent years, radar-based devices have emerged as an alternative approach for gait monitoring. However, the radar configuration and the algorithms used to extract the gait parameters often differ between contributions, lacking a systematic evaluation of the most appropriate setup. Additionally, radar-based studies often exclude motorically impaired subjects, leaving it unclear whether the existing algorithms are applicable to such populations. In this paper, a radar network is developed and validated by monitoring the gait of five healthy individuals and three patients with Parkinson's disease. Six configurations and four algorithms were compared using Vicon as ground-truth to determine the most appropriate solution for gait monitoring. The best results were obtained using only three nodes: two oriented towards the feet and one towards the torso. The most accurate stride velocity and distance in the state of the art were obtained with this configuration. Moreover, we show that analyzing the feet velocity increases the reliability of the temporal parameters, especially with aged or motorically impaired subjects. The contribution is significant for the implementation of radar networks in clinical and domestic environments, as it addresses critical aspects concerning the radar network configuration and algorithms.