Inertial sensors for motion detection of human upper limbs

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to present an inertial motion tracking system for monitoring movements of human upper limbs in order to support a home‐based rehabilitation scheme in which the recovery of stroke patients' motor function through repetitive exercises needs to be continuously monitored and appropriately evaluated.

Design/methodology/approach

Two inertial sensors are placed on the upper and lower arms in order to obtain acceleration and turning rates. Then the position of the upper limbs can be deduced by using the kinematical model of the upper limbs that was designed in the previous paper. The tracking system starts from inertial data acquisition and pre‐filtering, followed by a number of processes such as transformation of coordinate systems of sensor data, and kinematical modelling and optimization of position estimation.

Findings

The motion detector using the proposed kinematic model only has drifts in the measurements. Fusion of acceleration and orientation data can effectively solve the drift problem without the involvement of a Kalman filter.

Research limitations/implications

The image rendering is not undertaken when the data sampling is performed. This non‐synchronization is applied in order to avoid the breaks in the continuous sampling.

Originality/value

This new motion detector can work in different environments without significant drifts. Also, this system only deploys two inertial sensors but is able to estimate the position of the wrist, elbow and shoulder joints.

Citation

Zhou, H. and Hu, H. (2007), "Inertial sensors for motion detection of human upper limbs", Sensor Review, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 151-158. https://doi.org/10.1108/02602280710731713