Unintentional falls among older adults represent a severe global health concern, necessitating reliable, automated wearable Fall Detection Systems (FDS). However, developing practical wearable solutions requires navigating intricate engineering trade-offs among diagnostic accuracy, power consumption, memory footprint, and software development overhead. This paper presents a structured hardware selection guide evaluating three representative embedded design paradigms: low-cost threshold logic on 8-bit microcontrollers (Profile A), balanced classical machine learning on standard 32-bit platforms (Profile B), and compressed on-chip TinyML neural networks on edge-capable microcontrollers (Profile C). Comparative analysis reveals that while threshold methods achieve multi-week battery longevity at sub-$12 costs, they suffer from high false-alarm rates during dynamic daily activities. Conversely, TinyML architectures deliver superior classification accuracy (98%) on raw kinematic streams, but introduce steep memory quantization barriers, complex toolchains, and shorter battery recharge intervals. Classical machine learning emerges as the optimal design compromise for most developers, achieving robust diagnostic discrimination (95% sensitivity and specificity) with manageable computational demands at $15-$25. Finally, this review evaluates sensor placement ergonomics, addresses pervasive demographic bias in youth-simulated training datasets, and delivers a practical hardware selection framework for student researchers and independent developers.
Research Article
Open Access