Estimating three-dimensional orientation of human body parts by inertial/magnetic sensing.
User-worn sensing units composed of inertial and magnetic sensors are becoming increasingly popular in various domains, including biomedical engineering, robotics, virtual reality, where they can also be applied for real-time tracking of the orientation of human body parts in the three-dimensional (3D) space. Although they are a promising choice as wearable sensors under many respects, the inertial and magnetic sensors currently in use offer measuring performance that are critical in order to achieve and maintain accurate 3D-orientation estimates, anytime and anywhere. This paper reviews the main sensor fusion and filtering techniques proposed for accurate inertial/magnetic orientation tracking of human body parts; it also gives useful recipes for their actual implementation.
The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Piazza Martiri della Libertà 33, 56124 Pisa, Italy. sabatini@sssup.it
Angelo Maria
AM
Sabatini
D000465:Algorithms; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena / Q000502:physiology; D018594:Human Body; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D008280:Magnetics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*