Accelerometer-based swinging gesture detection for an electronic handbell

This paper tackles the problem of detecting the swinging action of an electronic handbell. It describes a threshold-based algorithm that is able to detect an orientation-free swinging motion using only the X and Y axis signals of an accelerometer that is mounted at the end of a handle. Equations governing the accelerations of the accelerometer are defined. The equations are used to select the appropriate accelerometer axis for swing motion detection, which were X axis and Y axis. The characteristics of the swing motion are identified empirically and incorporated to the swing detection algorithm. The experimental results for swinging motion performed by 4 users on the electronic bell show that the accuracy of swing motion detection is 95.3%.