Self-Calibrating Magnetometer-Free Inertial Motion Tracking of 2-DoF Joints

Laidig D, Weygers I, Seel T (2022)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2022

Journal

Sensors MDPI

Book Volume: 22

Journal Issue: 24

DOI: 10.3390/s22249850

Abstract

Human motion analysis using inertial measurement units (IMUs) has recently been shown to provide accuracy similar to the gold standard, optical motion capture, but at lower costs and while being less restrictive and time-consuming. However, IMU-based motion analysis requires precise knowledge of the orientations in which the sensors are attached to the body segments. This knowledge is commonly obtained via time-consuming and error-prone anatomical calibration based on precisely defined poses or motions. In the present work, we propose a self-calibrating approach for magnetometer-free joint angle tracking that is suitable for joints with two degrees of freedom (DoF), such as the elbow, ankle, and metacarpophalangeal finger joints. The proposed methods exploit kinematic constraints in the angular rates and the relative orientations to simultaneously identify the joint axes and the heading offset. The experimental evaluation shows that the proposed methods are able to estimate plausible and consistent joint axes from just ten seconds of arbitrary elbow joint motion. Comparison with optical motion capture shows that the proposed methods yield joint angles with similar accuracy as a conventional IMU-based method while being much less restrictive. Therefore, the proposed methods improve the practical usability of IMU-based motion tracking in many clinical and biomedical applications.

Authors with CRIS profile

Ive Weygers Professur für Intelligente Sensomotorische Systeme Thomas Seel Professur für Intelligente Sensomotorische Systeme

Involved external institutions

Technische Universität Berlin

Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Laidig, D., Weygers, I., & Seel, T. (2022). Self-Calibrating Magnetometer-Free Inertial Motion Tracking of 2-DoF Joints. Sensors, 22(24). https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s22249850

MLA:

Laidig, Daniel, Ive Weygers, and Thomas Seel. "Self-Calibrating Magnetometer-Free Inertial Motion Tracking of 2-DoF Joints." Sensors 22.24 (2022).

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