Wearable Sensors for Activity Recognition in Ultimate Frisbee Using Convolutional Neural Networks and Transfer Learning

In human activity recognition (HAR), activities are automatically recognized and classified from a continuous stream of input sensor data. Although the scientific community has developed multiple approaches for various sports in recent years, marginal sports are rarely considered. These approaches cannot directly be applied to marginal sports, where available data are sparse and costly to acquire. Thus, we recorded and annotated inertial measurement unit (IMU) data containing different types of Ultimate Frisbee throws to investigate whether Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and transfer learning can solve this. The relevant actions were automatically detected and were classified using a CNN. The proposed pipeline reaches an accuracy of 66.6%, distinguishing between nine different fine-grained classes. For the classification of the three basic throwing techniques, we achieve an accuracy of 89.9%. Furthermore, the results were compared to a transfer learning-based approach using a beach volleyball dataset as the source. Even if transfer learning could not improve the classification accuracy, the training time was significantly reduced. Finally, the effect of transfer learning on a reduced dataset, i.e., without data augmentations, is analyzed. While having the same number of training subjects, using the pre-trained weights improves the generalization capabilities of the network, i.e., increasing the accuracy and F1 score. This shows that transfer learning can be beneficial, especially when dealing with small datasets, as in marginal sports, and therefore, can improve the tracking of marginal sports.

Automated summary

In this study, the researchers recorded and annotated IMU data of different types of Ultimate Frisbee throws. They used Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and transfer learning to classify and recognize the actions. The proposed pipeline achieved high accuracy, especially in distinguishing fine-grained classes. The study also compared the results to a transfer learning-based approach using a different sports dataset and analyzed the impact of transfer learning on a reduced dataset without data augmentations.