title: Correction of joint angles from Kinect for balance exercising and assessment.
abstract: The new generation of videogame interfaces such as Microsoft's Kinect opens the possibility of implementing exercise programs for physical training, and of evaluating and reducing the risks of elderly people falling. However, applications such as these might require measurements of joint kinematics that are more robust and accurate than the standard output given by the available middleware. This article presents a method based on particle filters for calculating joint angles from the positions of the anatomical points detected by PrimeSense's NITE software. The application of this method to the measurement of lower limb kinematics reduced the error by one order of magnitude, to less than 10°, except for hip axial rotation, and it was advantageous over inverse kinematic analysis, in ensuring a robust and smooth solution without singularities, when the limbs are out-stretched and anatomical landmarks are aligned.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Biomecánica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain.
authors.forename: Helios
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: De Rosario
authors.forename: Juan Manuel
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Belda-Lois
authors.forename: Francisco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Fos
authors.forename: Enrique
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Medina
authors.forename: Rakel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Poveda-Puente
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kroll
mesh_terms: D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D006801:Humans; D007596:Joints / Q000502:physiology*; D004856:Postural Balance / Q000502:physiology*; D012399:Rotation; D012984:Software; D018910:Video Games