A Wearable Real-time Kinematic and Kinetic Measurement Sensor Setup for Human Locomotion

Area of Science:

• Biomechanics
• Human Motion Analysis
• Wearable Technology

Background:

• Traditional motion capture systems are limited by constrained environments, restricting natural human movement analysis.
• There is a need for portable, accurate systems capable of capturing both kinematic and kinetic data during diverse activities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a fully wearable system for simultaneous kinematic and kinetic human motion measurement.
• To assess the accuracy of the wearable system against conventional laboratory-based motion capture setups.
• To provide openly accessible data and code for the developed system.

Main Methods:

• Utilized commercially available inertial measurement units (IMUs) and pressure insoles for data acquisition.
• Collected data from 9 participants performing 13 daily motion activities, including walking, running, jumping, squatting, lunging, and landing.
• Employed multi-body inverse dynamics to process sensor data into joint angles, ground reaction forces (GRFs), and joint torques.

Main Results:

• The wearable system demonstrated high accuracy for lower limb joint angles (r=0.929), vertical GRFs (r=0.954), and ankle joint torques (r=0.917).
• Fair agreement was found for anterior-posterior Center of Pressure (CoP) (r=0.683) and knee joint torques (r=0.612).
• Lower correlation was observed for hip joint torques (r=0.21) and medial-lateral CoP (r=0.47).

Conclusions:

• The developed wearable system offers a viable and accurate solution for capturing lower limb kinematics and kinetics.
• This system overcomes the limitations of constrained laboratory environments, enabling richer movement analysis.
• Openly sharing the system's data and code promotes further research and development in wearable motion analysis.