Impact of Gyroscope Integration, Sensor Placement, and Activity Granularity on Human Activity Recognition Performance

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This study systematically evaluates the impact of sensor configuration, body location, classification granularity, and model choice on inertial-based human activity recognition in a laboratory dataset aligned with the Spanish IMPaCT cohort design. Data were collected from 85 participants instrumented with thigh-, wrist-, and hip-mounted inertial measurement units over a structured protocol of 13 semi-structured daily activities, a resting phase and a structured activity. After manual correction of timestamp drift, signals were segmented into overlapping 10-s windows and analyzed using convolutional neural networks, Random Forest, and XGBoost classifiers.Two classification targets were defined: fine-grained recognition of 15 laboratory-controlled activities and coarse-grained classification into four MET-based intensity levels. Results showed that classification granularity is the primary determinant of performance (F=224.85, p-value = 2.304×10−13 through the analysis of variance of the F1-score), with intensity-level classification substantially outperforming fine-grained activity recognition. Sensor configuration, model type, and body location also significantly influenced classification outcomes. Wrist-mounted sensors achieved the highest overall F1-scores. Incorporating gyroscope-derived features consistently improved performance across configurations, and feature importance analysis confirmed their substantial contribution. These findings, derived from models developed under controlled laboratory conditions, provide practical guidance for the design of wearable sensing protocols and modeling strategies in large-scale population-based studies, and support their extension to everyday physical activity, laying the foundation for future real-world applications.