Mobile Motion Capture for Human Skeletal Modeling in Natural Environments

ABSTRACT: Interest in tracking human movement has been motivated by the wide array of its applications in health care, military training, sports, and entertainment. Currently, there is no single motion capture technology that is perfect for every possible use. The most common method of tracking movement is based on optical motion analysis systems. However, these systems are costly, not portable, and suffer from occlusion. Mechanical sensors can be cumbersome, hard to use, and are limited to orientation measurements. Magnetic motion capture systems provide accurate orientation and position, but have limited range, low sampling rates, and their use has to be restricted to areas where magnetic disturbances can be eliminated. Although inertial measurement units (IMUs) can overcome most of the limitations associated with other motion capture systems, orientation and position tracking relying on IMUs alone suffer from integration drifts over long periods of operation, making it difficult or impossible to track the absolute position of body movements. The objective of this project is to develop a new system that combines range and inertial sensors. The new system will utilize novel algorithms to fuse the range and inertial data to track human movement of individuals performing normal daily activities in natural environments. BENEFIT: Combined with the inertial data, range information that directly measures range between pairs of transceivers and our novel tracking algorithms, this new system will continuously estimate absolute and relative body segment positions and orientations with unprecedented precision during long-term monitoring.