2016 Intl IEEE Conferences on Ubiquitous Intelligence & Computing, Advanced and Trusted Computing, Scalable Computing
and Communications, Cloud and Big Data Computing, Internet of People, and Smart World Congress
Applied a multi-scale entropy algorithm to analyze dynamic COP signal via
accelerometer sensor
Shih-Hui Lu, Jiann-Shing Shieh
Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Innovation
Center for Big Data and Digital Convergence
Yuan Ze University
Chungli, 320, Taiwan
e-mails: elmp520@gmail.com &
jsshieh@saturn.yzu.edu.tw
Abstract—In this study, we use an accelerometer sensor to
measure human postural signals during a dynamic task. In
previous studies, the step stability index (SSI) has been used to
assess human balance via similar sensors. However, the
placement of the 3 dimensional sensor differed and placed on
the lower back of the subjects. To improve the detection method,
we placed the accelerometer on the shoe. The purpose of this
research is to compute the SSI and to evaluate whether human
balance can be objectively measured with an accelerometer. The
results are compared with dynamic centre of pressure (COP)
measurements obtained from a force plate that serves as the
ground truth. The complexity index (CI) is calculated from
dynamic COP to compare with the results of SSI.
Keywords-falling; noninvasive physiological signs;
accelerometer sensor; multi-scale entropy
I. INTRODUCTION
Falling is a common occurrence among the elderly and it
often results in critical injuries. Falling is the main cause of
hospitalization in the elderly [1], and the second largest cause
of death. A physiological decline to maintain balance [2] is the
reason of falling during walking and standing.
Therefore it is of utterly importance to quantify the
physiological decline to prevent falling. Various methods
have been proposed and among them the step stability index
(SSI) has been reported to be a valid parameter. The SSI is
defined as the ratio of energy of the primary composition in a
step cycle to the energy of faster (higher frequency)
components. As a result, a more stable gait pattern
corresponds to a higher SSI [3]. The SSI can be computed
based on a single body-fixed sensor, i.e., an accelerometer
sensor fixed on the body to quantify stepping or gait stability
among the elderly. Cui et al. [3] showed that the placement of
the accelerometer on the lower back was not very convenient
and subjects felt constraint so that we decided to attach the
sensor directly on the tip of the shoe.
Moreover, the foot center of pressure (COP) is the average
position of entire pressures reacting on the foot at any given
time [4][5]. The global COP of the human body is the vertical
projection of the center of mass (COM) to the floor and can
be directly measured with force plate data during gait or
postural measurements [6]. The capability to preserve or
control the body’s COM is the definition of postural stability
978-1-5090-2771-2/16 $31.00 © 2016 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/UIC-ATC-ScalCom-CBDCom-IoP-SmartWorld.2016.53
Clint Hansen
Nanyang Technological University,
School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, 639798,
Singapore
e-mail: hansen.clint@gmail.com
and is associated with the base of support; to prevent falls and
accomplish specific movements. As an indirect measurement,
the COP can measure the anterior-posterior (A-P) and medial-
lateral (M-L) displacement of the COM [7] called postural
sway [8].
In order to quantify balance and the amount of body sway,
several studies have added a sponge pad on the force plates to
increase the task difficulty and serve as a more comprehensive
balance assessment tool [9][10][11]. However, the COP
position signals will deform and damp while the sponge pad
deforms ground reaction forces [12]. The COP signals
recorded from the bottom of the sponge pad are distinct and
nonlinear compared to those on the top of the sponge pad [13].
It is extremely complicated and a significant issue to
distinguish the difference characteristics among human body
signals. To analyze the data, previous studies have employed
the non-linear theory such as ensemble empirical mode
decomposition (EEMD) [3], approximate entropy (ApEn)
[14][15], sample entropy (SampEn) [16] and multi scale
entropy (MSE) [17]. These non-linear methods are able to
quantify and interpret human body signals. In this study we
apply EEMD to analyze the accelerometer sensor data using
SSI and decompose the postural sway. After computing
several intrinsic mode functions (IMFs), we chose the
appropriate reconstruction signals IMF2+IMF3 [2] to analyze
the complexity index (CI) using MSE from COP signal. In
addition, we compare the results from the accelerometer data
with the COP data from a force plate (Advanced Mechanical
Technology Incorporation (AMTI) Biomechanics Platforms).
The CI is being calculated from the force plate to compare
with the results of SSI.
II. MEASUREMENT DEVICE OF ACCELEROMETER SENSOR
In this section, we introduce the structure of the
accelerometer based measurement device (Fig. 1). The device
contains two sub-systems, the accelerometer sensor and the
data transmission system. When the subject is equipped with
the accelerometer sensor on the shoe, a Wi-Fi connection is
established between the custom written iOS system
application (APP) and the accelerometer sensor. The raw data
is transferred to the work station for offline data analysis.
Simultaneously the COP data from the force plate is collected.
Afterwards, the COP signal and the accelerometer data are
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decomposed using the EEMD method. Among all the IMFs,
IMF2+IMF3 are the appropriate reconstruction signals to
transform into CI by using MSE method.
The accelerometer sensor measurement is designed to
measure the raw data of the dynamic signal. Subjects wore a
small, and light-weight box which includes the accelerometer
sensor (MPU6050) (Fig. 2) on their right shoe surface. The
dimensions of the box are 33 x 25 x 10 mm as shown in Fig.
3, and it weighs 8g. The MPU6050 includes a tri-axial
accelerometer (sensor range and resolution are: ±16g and
±0.48mg, respectively) and a tri-axial gyroscope (sensor range
and resolution are: ±2000˚/s and ±0.0610˚/s, respectively).
The signals were recorded by an iOS system application
(Atomax Technology Corp) at a sample frequency of 100 Hz
(Fig. 4.), and later transmitted to a personal computer for
further analysis using MATLAB.
III. ANALYSIS ALGORITHMS
In this section we present the analysis algorithms that are
applied on the accelerometer sensor and COP data. First we
employ EEMD to decompose the data into multiple IMFs and
use these IMFs to calculate the SSI. Then we apply EEMD to
decompose the COP signal to choose the appropriate
reconstruction signals IMF2+IMF3 to evaluate the
complexity index (CI) by using MSE method. 
Fig. 1. The system design of accelerometer sensor and working flow chart.
Fig. 2. MPU6050 Fig. 3. Accelerometer sensor box
Fig. 4. The view of immediate data.
A. Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition Algorithm
The EEMD method is a noise-assisted enhancement of the
empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method proposed by
Huang et al. [18]. EEMD is applicable to nonlinear and non-
stationary processes and is also a kind of a decent
decomposition method which is based on the native
characteristic time scale of the data [19]. These
decompositions have the advantage to identify the intrinsic
time scales of the data without assuming signal stationary [3].
Fig. 5 (a) shows typical results from EEMD. The zooming
figure shows the comparison between EMD and EEMD
method in IMF4 as shown in Fig. 5 (b). It denotes that EEMD
has solved mode mixing from EMD.
B. Definition of Step Stability Index (SSI)
Among the triaxial accelerometer sensor, the vertical
direction acceleration has previously been shown to supply
the most information on the gait cycle [3]. In this study, the x
acceleration axis gives the most information. According to [3],
we apply the EEMD method to let each signal of x
acceleration axis decompose into a series of IMFs. Then, we
pick up one minute recordings, sampled at 100 Hz, to make
the number of IMFs relying on the length of the 6000 data
points. The EEMD method decomposes signals of this length
into 8 IMFs. The previous study [3] had done the visual
inspection of the dynamic patterns of the original signal and
of the IMFs, and they deduced that IMF1, IMF2 and IMF3
captured the higher frequency fluctuations at step frequency,
and IMF4 captured the dominant oscillatory patterns within
per step. As subjects walk with a steadier gait pattern which
would have high energy in IMF4 and low energy in IMF1,
IMF2 and IMF3 oppositely. We quantify the ‘‘energy’’ of
each IMF by calculating the standard deviation (SD). The
definition of the step stability index (SSI) is [3]:

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 (a)

(b)
Fig. 5. The comparison between EMD and EEMD method: (a) The resulting ensemble empirical mode decomposition components from the typical time series
data. (b) The comparison between EMD and EEMD method in IMF4.

biological science and engineering [20][21][22]. Pincus [15]

introduced the ApEn family of parameters for the analysis of
  
 such representatively short and noisy time series, which have
 = (1)
  
   
   
 been widely used in physiology and medicine. Moreover,
SampEn [23] algorithm and has the advantage of being less
C. Entropy dependent on the time series length.
Entropy assessment of biological signal has frequently A one-dimensional discontinuous time series is {Xi… Xn}.
been performed as a significant analytical tool between It builds consecutive coarse-grained time series, {y ( ) },

129
determined by the scale factor,  according to the equation
(2):

j
y (j )  1 /  i ( j 1) 1 xi 1  j  N / (2)

(1)
The time series {y } is simply the original time series
for scale one. The scale factor,  , divided the length of the
original time series which is equal to the each coarse-grained
time series. The SampEn for each coarse-grained time series
are represented as a function of the scale factor  and called
MSE analysis [24].
IV. ACCELEROMETER SENSOR SIGNAL ANALYSIS
In this section we explain the experimental procedures
and applied calculations.
A. Measuring Instrument
In order to prove that the accelerometer sensor signal can
assess human balance and the same regular trend as the The accelerometer sensor
commercial system, the following preliminary test was
carried out by 10 subjects. Subjects wore the accelerometer Fig. 6. The accelerometer sensor is on the right shoe surface.
sensor and stood on a sponge pad on the AMTI force platform
to measure the COP signal. Data for both devices was
collected simultaneously. After collecting data, we use
MATLAB for further analysis. We transformed the
accelerometer sensor signal into the SSI, and the COP
dynamic signal is firstly decomposed into several IMFs
through EEMD. Among all the IMFs, IMF2+IMF3 are the
appropriate reconstruction signals to transform into CI by
MSE. We can compare both of the trend between SSI and CI
ultimately. Because of the commercial system of AMTI, it
can eliminate the weight on the platform.
B. Dynamic State Signal Test
First, subjects wear a small, light-weight accelerometer
sensor on their right shoe surface, as shown in Fig. 6. Then Fig. 7. Subject stands on a sponge pad over the AMTI platform.
we let subjects stand on a sponge pad (to simulate the
dynamic mode) over the AMTI platform (Fig. 7) for one while the subjects were opening eyes, the CI was almost
minute under two different conditions: (1) standing still with higher than the situation of eyes close. It means that the
eyes open; (2) standing still with eyes close. human balance is better in the circumstance of eyes open. In
After receiving both accelerometer sensor and AMTI data, other words, this phenomenon conforms to the MSE principle.
we respectively used EEMD method to transform the We also employed t-test statistical analysis to get the p-value
accelerometer sensor data into SSI and applied EEMD to of SSI and CI between eyes open and eyes close. Both of the
decompose the COP signal. Then, we chose IMF2+IMF3 p-values of SSI and CI are less than 0.05. It represents there
transform into CI by MSE. According to the previous study, is a significant difference between eyes open and eyes close.
the vertical direction acceleration of the accelerometer sensor
has previously been shown to give most information on the V. DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORKS
step cycle. It also pointed out that the higher SSI indicates a A. Discussion
more stable gait pattern [3]. So, we choose the x acceleration In this study, we can see that the results follow a specific
axis which gives the most information in this study to analyze regular trend. Fixing the accelerometer on the shoe allows us
and the x direction of dynamic COP to do the continued to capture SSI and compare the results directly with a force
calculation. plate. But, before we implement that, there are still some
Fig. 8 shows one of the ten volunteers’ results of MSE. issues needed to be discussed.
From our experiment result of Table I, we can see that when First, we respectively apply the EEMD and MSE method
the subjects opened eyes, the SSI was absolutely higher than to analyze the accelerometer sensor and COP data, and get the
the condition of eyes close. It means the human balance is result of SSI and CI. That only could indicate the same trend
better when the subjects opened their eyes. Another aspect,

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 Fig. 8. The MSE result of one exemplary subject

TABLE I. THE RESULTS OF SSI AND CI

Accelerometer Accelerometer AMTI AMTI
SSI SSI CI CI

Subject x axis of SSI x axis of SSI x direction of CI x direction of CI

(Eyes Open) (Eyes Close) (Eyes Open) (Eyes Close)

1 1.56 1.20 18.23 17.50

2 1.37 0.83 19.72 21.63
3 1.32 0.70 16.50 14.93
4 1.82 1.53 21.24 15.15
5 1.30 0.79 19.05 18.26
6 0.86 0.70 16.49 16.15
7 1.18 0.62 18.93 8.92
8 0.86 0.71 18.16 16.90
9 1.17 0.62 21.32 17.47
10 1.82 1.53 17.94 14.90
Average 1.33f0.32 0.92f0.34 18.76f1.58 16.18f3.61
p-Value 0.0188 0.0388

but there is still no precise relationship between SSI and CI.
Further research needs to be conducted in order to compare
accelerometer data with a force plate. Second, we need to test
more results even to do clinical experiment. In that case, we
are capable of finding the proper and sensible coefficient
between SSI and CI.
B. Conclusion
From the dynamic state experiment, we compare the
accelerometer sensor a force plate. We make the x
acceleration axis signal of accelerometer sensor transform to
SSI. The result shows that the SSI shows similar features as
previously reported. The transformation of the COP signal to
CI shows higher complexity in the eyes open condition
compared to the eyes closed condition. It indicates there is the
more stable situation within opening eyes process. Therefore,
we could prove it has a consistent trend between SSI and CI.
C. Future Works
The further work we need to do is to find out the
relationship between the SSI and the CI. With the powerful
and accurate verification, we could use the accelerometer
sensor installed in a more convenient way to assess whether
the people’s balance are good or not.
Wearing the accelerometer sensor on the body is not
innovative, but wearing the accelerometer sensor to assess

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balance may lead to new innovative products. This is why
these preliminary testing results are reasonable but future
research has to be conducted. The next step is to design a
series of experiments in the elderly, and analyze the data to
compare with previous researches of young healthy subjects.
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