Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 29, 2025
08:22
A Novel Single Animal Motor Function Tracking System Using Simple, Readily Available Software
Published on: August 31, 2018
6.7K
A low-cost stand-alone platform for measuring motor behavior across developmental applications.
Andrea Cavallo1,2, Nathan C Foster1, Karthikeyan Kalyanasundaram Balasubramanian3
1Cognition, Motion and Neuroscience Laboratory, Center for Human Technologies, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy.
Iscience
|July 14, 2021
Summary
We developed KiD, a low-cost wearable motion tracking system for infants and children. This system accurately measures movement in natural settings and can classify arm movements, aiding developmental research.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Developmental Neuroscience
- Human Movement Science
Background:
- Motion tracking offers valuable insights into motor, cognitive, and social development.
- Understanding subtle movement variations is key to assessing developmental progress.
- Existing motion capture systems can be costly and restrictive for naturalistic studies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce KiD, a novel, low-cost, wearable motion measurement platform.
- To enable accurate tracking of infant and child movements in diverse, natural environments.
- To validate the performance of KiD against state-of-the-art motion capture technologies.
Main Methods:
- Development of a small, lightweight wearable sensor incorporating a nine-axis inertial measurement unit and an integrated processor.
- Utilizing the sensor to measure three-dimensional acceleration.
- Comparison of KiD measurements with established optical motion capture systems.
- Proof-of-concept demonstration involving classification of sinusoidal right arm movements.
Main Results:
- KiD is a low-cost, wearable platform designed for tracking infant and child movements.
- Three-dimensional acceleration measurements from KiD show strong agreement with optical motion capture systems.
- Successful classification of distinct sinusoidal right arm movements was achieved using KiD data.
Conclusions:
- KiD presents a viable, accessible solution for motion tracking in pediatric populations.
- The platform facilitates naturalistic movement analysis, crucial for developmental studies.
- KiD demonstrates potential for objective assessment of motor control in children.
