Analysis of machine learning for human motion pattern  recognition on embedded devices

Abstract: With an increased amount of connected devices and the recent surge of artificial intelligence, the two technologies need more attention to fully bloom as a useful tool for creating new and exciting products. As machine learning traditionally is implemented on computers and online servers this thesis explores the possibility to extend machine learning to an embedded environment. This evaluation of existing machine learning in embedded systems with limited processing capa-bilities has been carried out in the specific context of an application involving classification of basic human movements. Previous research and implementations indicate that it is possible with some limitations, this thesis aims to answer which hardware limitation is affecting clas-sification and what classification accuracy the system can reach on an embedded device. The tests included human motion data from an existing dataset and included four different machine learning algorithms on three devices. Support Vector Machine (SVM) are found to be performing best com-pared to CART, Random Forest and AdaBoost. It reached a classification accuracy of 84,69% between six different included motions with a clas-sification time of 16,88 ms per classification on a Cortex M4 processor. This is the same classification accuracy as the one obtained on the host computer with more computational capabilities. Other hardware and machine learning algorithm combinations had a slight decrease in clas-sification accuracy and an increase in classification time. Conclusions could be drawn that memory on the embedded device affect which al-gorithms could be run and the complexity of data that can be extracted in form of features. Processing speed is mostly affecting classification time. Additionally the performance of the machine learning system is connected to the type of data that is to be observed, which means that the performance of different setups differ depending on the use case.