Comparing and combining underfoot pressure features for shod and unshod gait biometrics

Abstract

Underfoot pressure is becoming a fully-fledged gait biometric modality with the advent of modular, high-resolution sensing floor tiles because they capture rich gait signals without requiring the subject's cooperation. The literature on underfoot pressure-based gait recognition has posed a variety of features for both the barefoot and shod walking cases. In this paper, we compare and combine a large number of these with three use case scenarios in mind: 1) barefoot gait recognition and shod-foot recognition when the shoe used in training is 2) the same and 3) different from the test shoe. Our results show a difference in the types of features most useful in each scenario and their combination yields barefoot recognition (EER of 2.2%) that approaches the performance levels of biometrics currently in use, a good showing for this emerging technology.