UWB-PostureGuard: A Privacy-Preserving RF Sensing System for Continuous Ergonomic Sitting Posture Monitoring

TL;DR

UWB-PostureGuard is a contactless, privacy-preserving system using UWB sensors and advanced machine learning to monitor sitting posture continuously with high accuracy, addressing privacy and comfort concerns of traditional methods.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel UWB-based posture monitoring system with PoseGBDT, enabling accurate, contactless, and privacy-preserving ergonomic posture detection in real-world settings.

Findings

Achieves 99.11% accuracy in posture classification.

Robust against clothing, additional devices, and furniture variations.

Scalable and low-cost for continuous health monitoring.

Abstract

Improper sitting posture during prolonged computer use has become a significant public health concern. Traditional posture monitoring solutions face substantial barriers, including privacy concerns with camera-based systems and user discomfort with wearable sensors. This paper presents UWB-PostureGuard, a privacy-preserving ultra-wideband (UWB) sensing system that advances mobile technologies for preventive health management through continuous, contactless monitoring of ergonomic sitting posture. Our system leverages commercial UWB devices, utilizing comprehensive feature engineering to extract multiple ergonomic sitting posture features. We develop PoseGBDT to effectively capture temporal dependencies in posture patterns, addressing limitations of traditional frame-wise classification approaches. Extensive real-world evaluation across 10 participants and 19 distinct postures demonstrates exceptional performance, achieving 99.11% accuracy while maintaining robustness against environmental variables such as clothing thickness, additional devices, and furniture configurations. Our system provides a scalable, privacy-preserving mobile health solution on existing platforms for proactive ergonomic management, improving quality of life at low costs.