Feature Selection Algorithm Considering Trial and Individual Differences for Machine Learning of Human Activity Recognition

In recent years, many studies have been performed on the automatic classification of human body motions based on inertia sensor data using a combination of inertia sensors and machine learning; training data is necessary where sensor data and human body motions correspond to one another. It can be difficult to conduct experiments involving a large number of subjects over an extended time period, because of concern for the fatigue or injury of subjects. Many studies, therefore, allow a small number of subjects to perform repeated body motions subject to classification, to acquire data on which to build training data. Any classifiers constructed using such training data will have some problems associated with generalization errors caused by individual and trial differences. In order to suppress such generalization errors, feature spaces must be obtained that are less likely to generate generalization errors due to individual and trial differences. To obtain such feature spaces, we require indices to evaluate the likelihood of the feature spaces generating generalization errors due to individual and trial errors. This paper, therefore, aims to devise such evaluation indices from the perspectives. The evaluation indices we propose in this paper can be obtained by first constructing acquired data probability distributions that represent individual and trial differences, and then using such probability distributions to calculate any risks of generating generalization errors. We have verified the effectiveness of the proposed evaluation method by applying it to sensor data for butterfly and breaststroke swimming. For the purpose of comparison, we have also applied a few available existing evaluation methods. We have constructed classifiers for butterfly and breaststroke swimming by applying a support vector machine to the feature spaces obtained by the proposed and existing methods. Based on the accuracy verification we conducted with test data, we found that the proposed method produced significantly higher F-measure than the existing methods. This proves that the use of the proposed evaluation indices enables us to obtain a feature space that is less likely to generate generalization errors due to individual and trial differences.