MIT picture-on-the-wall device wirelessly measures walking speed, gait

Consumer-focused wearable technology offers ways for individuals to track sleep patterns, steps and other baseline health indicators. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a device to accurately monitor a person’s walking speed and form.

Led by Dina Katabi, a professor in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), a team of researchers presented “WiGait," a device capable of continuously monitoring walking speeds of multiple people with up to 99 percent accuracy through wireless signals. Researchers are hopeful this device could improve care with movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis by analyzing disease progression.

"By using in-home sensors, we can see trends in how walking speed changes over longer periods of time," said lead author and PhD student Chen-Yu Hsu. "This can provide insight into whether someone should adjust their health regimens, whether that's doing physical therapy or altering their medications."

WiGait is mounted on the wall of a patient’s home and analyzes the wireless signals transmitted from the body to measure breathing, falling, walking speed and certain emotions. The WiGait camera, which includes an algorithm for not mistaking activates such as mopping the floor as walking, is able to measure stride length and walking speed with up to 99 percent accuracy. People within the house are tracked from any room in the house, ensuring accurate data on every aspect of life.

"The true novelty of this device is that it can map major metrics of health and behavior without any active engagement from the user, which is especially helpful for the cognitively impaired," said Ipsit Vahia, a geriatric clinician at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School who was not involved in the research. "Gait speed is a proxy indicator of many clinically important conditions, and down the line this could extend to measuring sleep patterns, respiratory rates, and other vital human behaviors."