Physical Violence Detection for Preventing School Bullying

School bullying is a serious problem among teenagers, causing depression, dropping out of school, or even suicide. It is thus important to develop antibullying methods. This paper proposes a physical bullying detection method based on activity recognition. The architecture of the physical violence detection system is described, and a Fuzzy Multithreshold classifier is developed to detect physical bullying behaviour, including pushing, hitting, and shaking. Importantly, the application has the capability of distinguishing these types of behaviour from such everyday activities as running, walking, falling, or doing push-ups. To accomplish this, the method uses acceleration and gyro signals. Experimental data were gathered by role playing school bullying scenarios and by doing daily-life activities. The simulations achieved an average classification accuracy of 92%, which is a promising result for smartphone-based detection of physical bullying.