Sensors 2012, 12, 14382-14396; doi:10.

3390/s121114382
OPEN ACCESS

sensors
ISSN 1424-8220
[Link]/journal/sensors
Article

Intelligent Predictor of Energy Expenditure with the Use of

Patch-Type Sensor Module
Meina Li 1, Keun-Chang Kwak 2 and Youn-Tae Kim 1,*
1
Department of IT Fusion Technology, Graduate School, Chosun University, 375 Seosuk-dong,
Gwangju 501-759, Korea; E-Mail: limeinaj1@[Link]
2
Department of Control, Instrumentation, and Robot Engineering, Chosun University,
375 Seosuk-dong, Gwangju 501-759, Korea; E-Mail: kwak@[Link]

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: petruskim@[Link];

Tel.: +82-62-230-6269; Fax: +82-62-233-6896.

Received: 10 September 2012; in revised form: 17 October 2012 / Accepted: 23 October 2012 /
Published: 25 October 2012

Abstract: This paper is concerned with an intelligent predictor of energy expenditure (EE)
using a developed patch-type sensor module for wireless monitoring of heart rate (HR) and
movement index (MI). For this purpose, an intelligent predictor is designed by an advanced
linguistic model (LM) with interval prediction based on fuzzy granulation that can be
realized by context-based fuzzy c-means (CFCM) clustering. The system components
consist of a sensor board, the rubber case, and the communication module with built-in
analysis algorithm. This sensor is patched onto the user’s chest to obtain physiological data
in indoor and outdoor environments. The prediction performance was demonstrated by root
mean square error (RMSE). The prediction performance was obtained as the number of
contexts and clusters increased from 2 to 6, respectively. Thirty participants were recruited
from Chosun University to take part in this study. The data sets were recorded during
normal walking, brisk walking, slow running, and jogging in an outdoor environment and
treadmill running in an indoor environment, respectively. We randomly divided the data set
into training (60%) and test data set (40%) in the normalized space during 10 iterations.
The training data set is used for model construction, while the test set is used for model
validation. The experimental results revealed that the prediction error on treadmill running
simulation was improved by about 51% and 12% in comparison to conventional LM for
training and checking data set, respectively.
Sensors 2012, 12 14383

Keywords: intelligent predictor; energy expenditure; patch-type sensor module; heart rate;
movement index; linguistic model

1. Introduction

Energy expenditure (EE) refers to the amount of energy that a person uses daily to complete all
bodily activities from movement to breathing. The accurate measurement of EE from physical activity
is a challenging problem that is important to epidemiologists, exercise scientists, clinicians, and
behavioral researchers. Recently the need for wireless health monitoring and detection of emergency
situations has rapidly increased [1]. Such a wireless system is used extensively, not only to estimate
EE, but it is also useful for patient monitoring and athletic training. Previous commercial physiological
sensors are relatively large and their power consumption is also considerable amount, so we recently
developed a patch-type sensor module to solve these problems [2]. The leading characteristics of this
sensor module are small size, wireless operation, low cost, light weight, and comfort for long-term
wear, as well as integration of all required measurement parameters into a single sensor. Furthermore,
a communication module is also integrated into the device to transmit heart rate and acceleration
information. Oxygen exchange (VO2) is one of the most fundamental and widely recognized measures
of EE. In general, the measurement of VO2 has been confined to laboratory settings and the use of a
treadmill due to the sophisticated equipment required. The recent introduction of the Cosmed K4b2
portable metabolic analyzer allows measurement of VO2 outside of a laboratory setting in more typical
clinical or household environments [3]. This analyzer provides measurements of VO2 and VCO2
during steady-state, submaximal exercise similar to the traditional gas exchange system [4]. The
obtained VO2 is transformed into EE.
There are many portable systems available. although perhaps none integrated with wireless
connectivity. Wong [5] have developed and tested a portable device that measures energy expenditure
per unit time of a human subject. Wixted [6] has analyzed the variance of accelerometer-count based
energy estimates and identified mechanical, biomechanical, and anthropometrical influences. There are
numerous portable instrumentations to measure movement [7–9]. Various methods have demonstrated
success in classification or prediction applications [10–15]. Oliver [11] has investigated the utility of a
variety of active accelerometer count thresholds for classifying sitting time in a sample of office
workers. Xiao [12] has designed a prediction model using the feedforward neural network (FFNN) to
reflect the effects of physical activities on the heart rate. In [13], a multi-step HR prediction method
is proposed. The HR prediction problem was converted into an initial-value problem for ordinary
differential equations. Then the Adams-Bashforth method was used to implement a multi-step
prediction. Yuchi [14] and Xiao [15] proposed the well-known FFNN as the predictor model based on
the relationship between heart rate and physical activity. The FFNN experimental results showed the
potential of the predictor with the results close to the actual data. Vathsangam [23] estimated energy
expenditure during treadmill walking using a single hip-mounted inertial sensor with a triaxial
accelerometer and triaxial gyroscope. He performed a comparative analysis of the well-known
probabilistic techniques in conjunction with inertial data modeling to predict energy expenditure for
Sensors 2012, 12 14384

steady-state treadmill walking. Nonlinear regression methods showed better prediction accuracy
compared to linear methods. Lin [24] presented a wearable sensor module and two representative
neural networks (RBFN, GRNN) for activity classification and prediction. He demonstrated the
effectiveness of a wearable sensor module and its neural network-based activity classification
algorithm for energy expenditure. The research in the literature mentioned above has been performed
based on well-known neural networks [12–15,24] or statistical methods [23] from numerical data.
However, these methods have not been considered to be knowledge representation via fuzzy
if-then rules with meaningful linguistic labels. In general, it is frequently advantageous to use several
computing techniques synergistically rather than exclusively, resulting in construction of
complementary hybrid intelligent systems such as neural-fuzzy computing. The effectiveness of these
complementary approaches has been demonstrated [21]. Therefore, our method shall be developed to
possess intensive computational ability, together with meaningful linguistic labels [16].
This paper focuses on a method for designing an intelligent predictor of EE using the developed
patch-type sensor module for wireless monitoring of a given input-output data such as heart rate (HR),
movement index (MI), and EE. It has been demonstrated that the device used in this paper is suitable
through reliability tests, performance evaluation of heart rate detection and movement indexes,
as well as field tests using the Bruce protocol [2]. The intelligent predictor is designed by a
Takagi-Sugeno-Kang-Linguistic Model (TSK-LM) with an interval prediction with the aid of fuzzy
granulation realized via Context-based Fuzzy c-Means (CFCM) clustering [16]. This clustering
technique builds information granules in the form of fuzzy sets and develops clusters by preserving the
homogeneity of the clustered patterns associated with the input and output space [17–21]. The
conventional LM was designed by linguistic contexts in the consequent part [19]. Although these
contexts give meaningful linguistic labels, the obtained results did not show a good performance. The
TSK type is by far the most popular candidate for fuzzy modeling and effective to develop a systematic
approach [21]. Based on these two complementary approaches, we propose a TSK-based linguistic
type in the subsequent work. The normal walking, brisk walking, slow running, and jogging experiments
were performed in outdoor environments, as well as treadmill running in indoor environments [3]. The
experiments results revealed that the proposed intelligent predictor outperformed the well-known
methods [18,19,22]. The experimental results revealed that the prediction error on treadmill running
simulation was improved by about 49~51% and 12% in comparison to RBFN-CFCM and conventional
LM for training and checking data set, respectively. We also obtained 70% and 14% performance
improvement in comparison to conventional RBFN for training and checking data set, respectively. In
the case of outdoor environments, we obtained about 28~39% and 4~8% improvement in comparison
to conventional LM for training and checking data set, respectively.
The material of this paper is organized in the following fashion: in Section 2, we describe a
patch-type sensor module to obtain the HR and MI. In Section 3, we present the intelligent predictor
based on TSK-LM from numerical input-output physiological data pairs. In Section 4, we report the
experimental setup and perform a comparison in indoor environments. Finally the conclusions and
comments are given in Section 5.
Sensors 2012, 12 14385

2. Wireless Monitoring System with a Patch-Type Sensor Module

This section covers the details of the patch-type sensor module for wireless monitoring of heart rate
and movement index. This module consists of a sensor board, rubber board, and communication
module. Figure 1 shows the module equipped with sensor board and silicon packaging case during
treadmill running in an indoor environment [2].

Figure 1. Patch-type sensor module and Cosmed K4b2 gas system during treadmill running.

The patch-type sensor board includes a Li-ion charger, USB interface connector, Zigbee RF
module, ECG acquisition, micro-controller, voltage regulators, voltage converter, and 3-axis
accelerometer. Here a Texas Instruments MSP 430 chip with 60 KB flash memory, 2048 SRAM
memory, and 8 MHz clock frequency is used in the microcontroller. The input signals are interpreted
appropriately as heart rate, heat stress, and movement index using a signal processing algorithm.
Simultaneous, dependable real-time communication has been secured for a distance of over 400 m for
eight people. To enable wireless exercise management, the acquired sensor data should be passed to a
central monitoring system. In this system, a commercial Zigbee telecommunication module is used for
data transfer [2]. Figure 2 shows the patch-type sensor board with 3-axis accelerometer and ECG
acquisition [2].

Figure 2. Patch-type sensor board with 3-axis accelerometer and ECG acquisition.
Sensors 2012, 12 14386

In the heart rate monitor design, we used three electrodes for ECG measurement on the chest.
These gel-free electrodes are mounted on a conductive adhesive patch. The ECG analog circuitry
was specifically designed for effective motion artifact rejection during exercise. The ECG signal is
converted into a digital signal with a sampling rate of 200 Hz for heart rate estimation. The
performance evaluation of the heart rate detection algorithm was conducted by comparing it with the
reference system, while changing the running speed. The average error between the heart rate monitor
and the commercial stress ECG monitor was less than 2%.
We used a three-axis accelerometer (MMA7260Q) to detect acceleration changes during exercise.
This device is a cheap capacitive micro-machined accelerometer featuring good sensitivity, low power
consumption, and very small size. With this sensor, this system can measure the athlete’s motion
signals in the range of -6 to 6 g and calculate the movement index. We used the zero-crossing detection
algorithm for the motion artifact rejection. This procedure reduces the probability of false-value
extraction due to motion artifact noises [2]. The performance evaluation of the movement index was
conducted on a feature-point extraction function. It showed good feature-point extraction characteristics
with a maximum of 1%. Figure 3 shows data distribution of heart rate and movement index during
treadmill running. The pairwise linear correlation coefficient between HR and MI is 0.892.

Figure 3. Example of data distribution during treadmill running.

35

30

25

20
MI

15

10

0
80 100 120 140 160 180 200
HR

Figure 4 visualizes theoretical acceleration waveform with feature points, feature values, and
movement index. The movement index can be defined as the average of the triangular areas of the
acceleration graph for each second in the acceleration waveform as shown in Figure 4. For further
details on the theoretical acceleration waveforms, readers may refer to [2].
Sensors 2012, 12 14387

Figure 4. Acceleration waveform and the method of defining the movement index
(the sum of areas per second) [2].

Acceleration
(g)

Time
(sec)

1 sec

3. Intelligent Predictor by Linguistic Model

For simplicity, we assume that the TSK-LM under consideration has two inputs x and y. Moreover,
we assume that the number of the cluster centers in each context is equal. The output of this model is
produced by the lower and upper bound with uncertainty because the estimated output is computed by
the fuzzy number. The TSK-LM architecture is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Architecture of TSK-LM as intelligence predictor.

u 11
z1
u 1i f1 = + p1x + q1 y
Σ
u 1c

b0
u t1
zt
u ti ft = + pt x + qt y
Σ Σ f
[ x , y] u tc

u p1
zp
u pi
Σ
fp = + pp x + q p y
u pc
Linguistic contexts
1

0. 9

0. 8

0. 7

0. 6

0. 5

0. 4

CFCM clustering
0. 3

0. 2

0. 1

0
output
Sensors 2012, 12 14388

Every circle node of the second layer represents the membership grade of the fuzzy set associated
with a linguistic label. Here fuzzy clustering in each linguistic context is performed in dashed-line
rectangular area. Every node in the third layer is a fixed node labeled Σ, which computes the
summation of overall membership grades obtained by each context. The zt, t = 1, 2, …, p, is the
summation of membership values corresponding to the t-th context. The single node in the fourth layer
is also a fixed node which computes the overall output as the summation of all incoming signals.
The linguistic contexts are used to extract fuzzy rules in the CFCM clustering. In the conventional
LM, these contexts were generated through a series of triangular membership functions equally spaced
along the domain of an output variable. However, we may encounter a data scarcity problem due to
small data sets included in some linguistic contexts. Thus, this problem brings about the difficulty to
obtain fuzzy rules from the Context-based Fuzzy c-Means (CFCM) clustering [17]. Therefore, we use
the probability distribution of output variable to produce the flexible linguistic contexts.
The CFCM clustering method, as proposed by Pedrycz [17], is an effective approach to estimate the
cluster centers preserving homogeneity on the basis of fuzzy granulation. In contrast to the context-free
clustering methods, the CFCM clustering method is performed with the aid of the information
granulation. As shown in Figure 5, CFCM clustering is performed in the second layer. Here the
membership matrix is initialized with random values between 0 and 1. The optimization completed by
the CFCM clustering is realized iteratively by updating the membership matrix and the cluster centers.
The update of the membership matrix is completed as follows:
wt k
utik = 2 i = 1,2 ,… , c , k = 1,2 ,… , N
c ⎛ x k − vi ⎞ m −1
(1)
⎜ ⎟
∑ ⎜ xk − v j ⎟
j =1
⎝ ⎠
where utik represents the element of the membership matrix induced by the i-th cluster and k-th data in
the t-th context. Here wtk denotes a membership value of the k-th data to the t-th context. The cluster
centers vi are calculated in the form:
N

∑u
k =1
m
tik xk
vi = N (2)
∑u
k =1
m
tik

where the fuzzification factor “m” is taken as 2.0. When applying the CFCM clustering to numerical
input-output data pairs, each of the cluster centers presents a prototype that exhibits certain
characteristics of the system to be modeled. The t-th linguistic context is visualized in Figure 6, where
[rt − ,rt ,rt + ] is a 3-element vector that determines the break points of this membership function. Thus the
t-th consequent part combined with TSK-type is expressed as follows:
f t = [rt − ,rt ,rt + ] + pt x + qt y (3)
where f t is a vector represented by [ f t − , f t* , f t + ]. Here the parameters of linguistic contexts are
obtained by probabilistic distribution. The linear coefficients {pt ,qt } of TSK-type are estimated by
Least Square Estimator (LSE).
Sensors 2012, 12 14389

Figure 6. The t-th linguistic context in consequent part.

rt − rt rt +

The results obtained by conventional LM have shown a biased prediction error. This problem
brings about a poor approximation and generalization ability. Therefore, we add a bias term to the
conventional LM so that the TSK-LM can provide an unbiased prediction. The bias term is computed
in a straightforward manner as follows:
N
1
b0 =
N
∑ (target
k =1
k − predict k ) (4)

where predictk denotes a modal value of fuzzy number produced for k-th input data point and N is the
number of data point. The resulting fuzzy number with bias term is expressed as the following form:

f = z1 ⊗ f 1 ⊕ ⊕ zp ⊗ fp ⊕ ⊕ z t f t + b0 (5)
We denote the algebraic operations by ⊗ and ⊕ to emphasize that the underlying computation
operates on a collection of fuzzy numbers. Given the multiplication and addition for two operations,
the final fuzzy number (model output) is computed as follows:
p p
f* = ∑ z t f t* + b0 = ∑ z t ( rt + p t x + q t y ) + b0 (6)
t =1 t =1

Furthermore, the lower and upper bound of model output are computed by the following form [4]:
p
f − = ∑ z t ( rt − + pt x + qt y ) + b0 (7)
t =1

p
f + = ∑ z t ( rt + + pt x + qt y ) + b0 (8)
t =1

Based on these bounds, we can represent the uncertain model output with fuzzy number.

4. Experimental Results

The system presented in this paper is a wireless, small size (6 cm × 9 cm) and light weight (41 g)
sensor that can be patched on the chest of participants to obtain physiological data as shown in Figure 1.
The sensor board consists of a 3-axis accelerometer and three ECG electrodes to detect heart rate (HR)
and movement index (MI). This system can simultaneously monitor a maximum of eight participants
in an open field over 400 meters. The Cosmed K4b2 portable metabolic system is used as the standard
value to estimate energy expenditure (EE). Thirty participants (n = 30) were recruited from Chosun
Sensors 2012, 12 14390

University to take part in this study. The participants were advised of this study through a University
bulletin. All of the recruited participants reported no chronic diseases or activity disabilities. Data
regarding age, height, and weight were collected by survey. The body mass index (BMI) was
calculated using weight (kg) per squared height (m2). Table 1 lists mean and standard deviation
regarding the physical characteristics of the subjects. The participants were shown how to complete the
procedure and understood the schedule based on a written paper before starting the experiment.
Approval from the Ethics Committee of the Chosun University Medical Centre was obtained before
beginning the study. The experiments were performed in both indoor and outdoor environments.
Figure 7 visualizes the distribution of two input variables obtained from normal walking, brisk
walking, slow running, and jogging in an outdoor environment and treadmill running in an indoor
environment, respectively.

Table 1. Physical characteristics of subjects.

Characteristic Men (n = 17) Women (n = 13)
Age (y) 26.0 ± 2.1 25.8 ± 3.2
Height (cm) 169 ± 6.7 162.1 ± 6.3
Weight (kg) 65.2 ± 9.6 52.1 ± 9.4
BMI (kg.m−2) 22.8 ± 7.1 19.8 ± 7.1

Figure 7. Distribution of two input variables obtained in indoor and outdoor environments.
60
walking
brisk walking
50 slowest running
jogging
treadmill running
40

30
MI

20

10

0
80 100 120 140 160 180 200
HR

Firstly, we performed a treadmill running test in an indoor environment. The participants are tested
on the treadmill based on the submaximal protocols. The treadmill is started at 2.7 km/h with 10%
increase. The treadmill slope increases by 2% every three minutes. The database is recorded by the
system in real-time around 9~12 minutes. The EE is simultaneously measured by the portable indirect
calorimeter. In this experiment, we shall apply the TSK-LM for the prediction problem of EE as
nonlinear regression. The EE depends on two continuous attributes, including HR and MI. The data set
consists of 76 examples. The training and checking data set are randomly selected by 60%–40% split
in the normalized space between 0 and 1, respectively. Ten iterations of the experiment were
performed. The training data set is used for construction of the intelligent predictor model, while the
Sensors 2012, 12 14391

checking data set is used for intelligent predictor model validation. Thus, the resultant predictor is not
biased toward the training data set and it is likely to have a better generalization capacity for new data.
The prediction performance by root mean square error (RMSE) is obtained as the number of context
and cluster increased from 2 to 6, respectively. Table 2 shows a comparison of RMSE with the
previous prediction works. As listed in Table 2, the TSK-LM predictor showed good performance in
comparison with the neural networks and LM. The Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) used in Table 2
was designed by logistic activation function, back propagation algorithm, and 2-10-1 network,
corresponding to the number of nodes in each layer. Here we used 1,000 epochs and a learning rate of
0.01. In the design of the LM, we used three contexts and three clusters in each context, determined by
trial and error. Although the LM has a structured knowledge representation in the form of fuzzy if-then
rules, it lacked the adaptability to deal with nonlinear model. Moreover, we performed the experiments
as the number of nodes in hidden layer increases from 3 to 20 in the design of Radial Basis Function
Networks (RBFN). Finally, we determined the 20 nodes representing best performance.

Table 2. Performance comparison of RMSE (indoor).

Trn_RMSE Chk_RMSE
MLP [22] 1.41 1.42
RBFN [22] 0.73 0.97
RBFN-CFCM [18] 0.64 0.95
LM(p = 3,c = 3) [19] 0.65 0.95
TSK-LM(p = 6,c = 2) 0.52 0.85
TSK-LM(p = 6,c = 3) 0.43 0.85

Figure 8. Approximation and generalization capability with interval prediction for training
and checking data.
25
Measured output
20 Upper bound
TSK-LM output
Lower bound
EE(kcal/min)

15

10

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
num. of training data

25
Measured output
20 Upper bound
TSK-LM output
EE(kcal/min)

15 Lower bound

10

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
num. of checking data
Sensors 2012, 12 14392

Here the weights of RBFN were obtained by the least square estimate (LSE) methods. The best
TSK-LM model was obtained when the checking error (Chk_RMSE) is minimal (p = 6, c = 3).
Figure 8 shows the approximation and generalization capability with an interval prediction by lower
and upper bound for training and checking data, respectively. As shown in Figure 8 and Table 2, the
experimental results revealed that the presented intelligent predictor (TSK-LM) outperformed the
well-known methods [18,19,22]. We obtained about 51% and 12% performance improvement in
comparison to LM itself for the training and checking data set, respectively. Figure 9 shows linguistic
contexts produced in the EE output space. Figure 10 visualizes the distribution of input variables and
cluster centers estimated in each context when p = 3 in the normalized space.

Figure 9. Linguistic contexts produced in output space (p = 6).

0.8
Membership degree

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Energy Expenditure

Figure 10. Data distribution and cluster centers estimated in each context.
1
data
0.9
clusters in T1

0.8 clusters in T2
clusters in T3
0.7

0.6

0.5
MI

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
HR
Sensors 2012, 12 14393

Table 3 lists the factor influence on the prediction performance for the training and checking data
sets. The experimental methods and the number of rules are the same as mentioned above. As shown in
Table 3, the HR has a strong influence in comparison to MI in the design by LM and TSK-LM. As
listed in Table 3, the experimental results of TSK-LM on HR influence showed 73% and 27%
improvement in comparison to LM itself for the training and checking data sets, respectively.

Table 3. Factor influence on prediction performance.

Factor Method Trn_RMSE Chk_RMSE
LM [19] 0.97 1.08
HR
TSK-LM 0.56 0.85
LM [19] 1.35 1.51
MI
TSK-LM 0.62 1.29

We also performed normal walking, brisk walking, slow running, and jogging in an outdoor
environment, respectively. All of the participants were encouraged to complete four exercise tests in
the open field. Each test course was performed on a 400 meter oval track. The experimental procedure
was designed to progress as naturally as possible. The participants were told to be in a pleasurable
mood, as in doing exercise in the morning or taking a walk after dinner and to be comfortable when
walking and jogging. The approximation and generalization performance are shown in Figure 11 to
Figure 14 for normal walking, brisk walking, slow walking, and jogging data, respectively. Table 4
lists performance comparison of RMSE under outdoor environments. In the case of the training data
set, we obtained 39%, 29%, 36%, and 28% performance improvement in comparison to conventional
LM for normal walking, brisk walking, slow walking, and jogging, respectively. We also achieved
about 4~8% improvement for the checking data set.

Figure 11. Approximation and generalization capability for normal walking data.
8
Measured output
TSK-LM output
EE(kcal/min)

2
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
num. of training data

8
Measured output
TSK-LM output
EE(kcal/min)

2
0 5 10 15 20 25
num. of checking data
Sensors 2012, 12 14394

Figure 12. Approximation and generalization capability for brisk walking data.
15

EE(kcal/min)
10

5
Measured output
TSK-LM output
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
num. of training data

15
EE(kcal/min)

10

5
Measured output
TSK-LM output
0
0 5 10 15 20 25
num. of checking data

Figure 13. Approximation and generalization capability for slow running data.
15
EE(kcal/min)

10

5
Measured output
TSK-LM output
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
num. of training data

15

10
EE(kcal/min)

0 Measured output
TSK-LM output
-5
0 5 10 15 20 25
num. of checking data

Figure 14. Approximation and generalization capability for jogging data.

20

15
EE(kcal/min)

10

5 Measured output
TSK-LM output
0
0 5 10 15 20 25
num. of training data

20

15
EE(kcal/min)

10

5 Measured output
TSK-LM output
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
num. of checking data
Sensors 2012, 12 14395

Table 4. Performance comparison of RMSE (outdoor).

Physical activity Method Trn_RMSE Chk_RMSE
LM [19] 0.75 1.06
Normal Walking
TSK-LM 0.54 0.98
LM [19] 1.47 1.82
Brisk Walking
TSK-LM 1.14 1.72
LM [19] 0.79 1.44
Slow Running
TSK-LM 0.58 1.38
LM [19] 2.0 2.74
Jogging
TSK-LM 1.56 2.58

5. Conclusions

We developed an intelligent TSK-LM predictor of energy expenditure with the aid of a patch-type
sensor module for wireless monitoring of heart rate and movement index. This predictor possesses
intensive computation ability together with meaningful linguistic labels and interval prediction based
on fuzzy granulation. The experimental results revealed that the presented intelligent predictor showed
good performance in comparison with the systems described in the previous works. Moreover, we
could recognize that the system equipped with patch-type sensor module can be used as an efficient
tool to predict energy expenditure for athletic training.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Public Welfare & Safety Research Program of the National
Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology
(2012-0006520).

References

1. Yan, H.; Huo, H.; Xu, Y.; Gidlund, M. Wireless sensor network based E-health system
implementation and experimental results. IEEE Trans. Consum. Electr. 2010, 56, 2288–2295.
2. Li. M.; Kim, Y.T. Development of patch-type sensor module for wireless monitoring of
movement index. Sens. Actuators A: Phys. 2012, 173, 277–283.
3. Li, M.; Kim, J.M.; Kim, Y.T. A combined heart rate and movement index sensor for estimating
the energy expenditure. In Proceedings of the IEEE Sensor Conference, Waikoloa Village, HI,
USA, 1–4 November 2010; pp. 809–812.
4. Brychta, R.; Wohlers, E.; Moon, J.; Chen, K. Energy expenditure: Measurement of human
metabolism. IEEE Eng. Med. Biol. 2010, 29, 42–47.
5. Wong, T.C.; Webster, J.G.; Montoye, H.J.; Washburn, R. Portable accelerometer device for
measuring human energy expenditure. IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng. 1981, BME-28, 467–471.
6. Wixted, A.J.; Thiel, D.V.; Hahn, A.G.; Gore, C.J.; Pyne, D.B.; James, D.A. Measurement of
energy expenditure of elite athletes using MEM-based triaxial accelerometers. IEEE Sens. J.
2007, 7, 481–488.
7. Lee, Y.D.; Chung, W.Y. Wireless sensor network based wearable smart shirt for ubiquitous health
and activity monitoring. Sens. Actuators B: Chem. 2009, 140, 390–395.
Sensors 2012, 12 14396

8. Powell, S.M.; Rowlands, A.V. Intermonitor variability of the RT3 accelerometer during typical
physical activities. Med. Sci. Sport. Exer. 2004, 36, 324–330.
9. Powell, S.M.; Jones, D.I.; Rowlands, A.V. Technical variability of the RT3 accelerometer.
Med. Sci. Sport. Exer. 2003, 35, 1773–1778.
10. Ekelund, E.; Sjostrom, M.; Yngve, A.; Poortvliet, E;, Nilsson, A.; Froberg, K.; Wedderkopp, N.;
Westerterp, K. Physical activity assessed by activity monitor and doubly labeled water in
children. Med. Sci. Sport. Exer. 2001, 33, 275–281.
11. Oliver, M.; Schofield, G.M.; Badland, H.M.; Shepherd, J. Utility of accelerometer thresholds for
classifying sitting in office workers. Prev. Med. 2010, 51, 357–360.
12. Xiao, F.; Chen, Y.M.; Yuchi, M.; Ding, M.Y. Heart Rate Prediction Model Based on Physical
Activities Using Evolutionary Neural Network. In Proceedings of the International Conference
on Genetic and Evolutionary Computing, Shenzhen, China, 13–15 December 2010; pp. 198–201.
13. Xiao, F.; Yuchi, M.; Ding, M.Y.; Jo, J.; Kim, J.W. A Multi-Step Heart Rate Prediction Method
Based on Physical Activity Using Adams-Bashforth Technique. In Proceedings of IEEE
International Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Robotics and Automation, Daejeon,
Korea, 15–18 December 2009; pp. 355–359.
14. Yuchi, M.; Jo, J. Heart Rate Prediction Based on Physical Activity Using Feedforward Neural
Network. In Proceedings of International Conference on Convergence and Hybrid Information
Technology, Busan, Korea, 11–13 November 2008; pp. 344–350.
15. Xiao, F.; Yuchi, M.; Jo, J.; Ding, M.Y.; Hou, W.G. A Research of Physical Activity’s Influence on
Heart Rate Using Feedforward Neural Network; Yu, W., He, H, Zhang, N., Eds.; Springer-Verlag:
Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany, 2009; Volume 3, pp. 1089–1096.
16. Kwak, K.C.; Kim, D.H. TSK-based linguistic fuzzy model with uncertain model output. IEICE
Trans. Inf. Syst. 2006, 89D, 2919–2923.
17. Pedrycz, W. Conditional fuzzy c-means. Pattern Recogn. Lett. 1996, 17, 625–632.
18. Pedrycz, W. Conditional fuzzy clustering in the design of radial basis function neural networks.
IEEE Trans. Neural Netw. 1998, 9, 601–612.
19. Pedrycz, W.; Kwak, K.C. Linguistic models as a framework of user-centric system modeling.
IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cy. A 2006, 36, 727–745.
20. Pedrycz, W.; Kwak, K.C. The development of incremental models. IEEE Trans. Fuzzy Syst. 2007,
15, 507–518.
21. Kim, S.S.; Kwak, K.C. Development of quantum-based adaptive neuro-fuzzy networks.
IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cy. B 2010, 40, 91–100.
22. Jang, J.S.R.; Sun, C.T.; Mizutani, E. Neuro-Fuzzy and Soft Computing; Prentice Hall: Upper
Saddle River, NJ, USA, 1997; Chapter 9, pp. 233–245.
23. Vathsangam, H.; Emken, A.; Schroeder, E.T.; Spruijt-Metz, D.; Sukhatme, G.S. Determining
energy expenditure from treadmill walking using hip-worn inertial sensors: An experimental
study. IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng. 2011, 58, 2804–2815.
24. Lin, C.W.; Yang, Y.T.C.; Wang, J.S.; Yang, Y.C. A wearable sensor module with a
neural-network-based activity classification algorithm for daily energy expenditure estimation.
IEEE Trans. Inf. Technol. B 2012, 16, 991–998.

© 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license
([Link]
Copyright of Sensors (14248220) is the property of MDPI Publishing and its content may not be copied or
emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission.
However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.