Walking fingerprinting

We consider the problem of predicting an individual's identity from accelerometry data collected during walking. In a previous paper, we transformed the accelerometry time series into an image by constructing the joint distribution of the acceleration and lagged acceleration for a vector of lags. Predictors derived by partitioning this image into grid cells were used in logistic regression to predict individuals. Here, we (a) implement machine learning methods for prediction using the grid cell-derived predictors; (b) derive inferential methods to screen for the most predictive grid cells while adjusting for correlation and multiple comparisons; and (c) develop a novel multivariate functional regression model that avoids partitioning the predictor space. Prediction methods are compared on two open source acceleometry data sets collected from: (a) 32 individuals walking on a $1.06$ km path; and (b) six repetitions of walking on a 20 m path on two occasions at least 1 week apart for 153 study participants. In the 32-individual study, all methods achieve at least 95% rank-1 accuracy, while in the 153-individual study, accuracy varies from 41% to 98%, depending on the method and prediction task. Methods provide insights into why some individuals are easier to predict than others.