Distinguishing Sitting and Standing Activities Using a Wearable Barometric Pressure Monitor

Recent advancements in wearable inertial sensor technology have enabled extensive research into activity classification. However, the distinction between the sitting and standing activities using trunk-worn wearable monitoring systems remains challenging, thus requiring additional sources of information such as elevation change. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the suitability of barometric pressure, an absolute estimate of elevation, for distinguishing between sitting and standing (STS), as part of a wearable system. A barometric pressure sensor was integrated in a comfortable, miniaturized wearable sensor device suitable for improved long-term activity recognition. It enabled discriminating STS transitions from stationary postures with an accuracy of 99.5%, sensitivity of 99.7% and specificity of 99.3% and is capable of completely discriminating Sit-to-Stand from Stand-to-Sit transitions.