25 years of lower limb joint kinematics by using inertial and magnetic sensors: A review of methodological approaches
Section snippets
Lower limb joint angular kinematics in gait analysis: aims, current practice and new trends
Cappozzo and colleagues stated that “Human movement analysis aims at gathering quantitative information about the mechanics of the musculo-skeletal system during the execution of a motor task” [1]. When the latter refers to human gait, a variety of kinematic variables and related parameters can be used for characterising this motor task [2]. One of these variables is represented by joint angular kinematics (simply “joint kinematics” from now on), which is considered a key descriptor for
Inertial sensors for estimating a body segment’s orientation: a brief “historical” perspective
A common way to introduce inertial sensors in research papers proposing novel methodologies for human movement analysis (including the present paper) is to present inertial sensors as a recent alternative to standard laboratory-based motion analysis technologies. Inertial sensors started to make their appearance, instead, in parallel to camera-based approaches [19]: the first studies on the estimate of segmental orientation indeed date back to 1973 when Morris used six uniaxial accelerometers
On the estimate of the sensor’s orientation
Since joint kinematics has been defined as the relative orientation of two adjacent body segments, its estimate first requires the knowledge of the orientation of each body segment by using inertial sensors. In a bi-dimensional (2D) (i.e., planar) case, joint kinematics is, then, usually computed as the difference between the planar orientation of the adjacent body segments. In the 3D case, just as in stereophotogrammetry, the 3D orientation of the two adjacent body segments is needed. Both in
Segment-to-sensor alignment
When estimating joint kinematics by using inertial sensors, a sensor-to-segment axis alignment is a crucial factor to take into account. As previously said, obtaining the orientation of the body segment from the known orientation of a sensor fixed on the segment is not straightforward. Sensor-to-segment axes alignment is needed for the sake of the functional readability of the measured or derived information content: to be called “joint kinematics”, it has to be the relative orientation between
Estimating joint kinematics by using inertial sensors
The first study which formalised the problem of the estimate of joint kinematics by using inertial sensors dates back to 1990 [28]. Since then, a variety of methodological approaches have been presented over the past 25 years to estimate 2D and 3D joint kinematics by using wearable inertial sensors. Several levels of classification are used in the present paper for classifying the relevant research from 1990 to the present day (Fig. 1). A first level consists in distinguishing between the 2D
Discussion and conclusions
A 25 year methodological review of studies related to the estimation of joint kinematics by means of inertial sensors has been performed. A list of the methodological contributions, along with their relevant main peculiarities and distinctiveness, can be found in Table 1.
Generally, all of the analysed approaches were found to be accurate with respect to standard motion analysis techniques. For this reason, the following debate is going to be addressed more on the practical and “ecological”
Conflicts of interest
The author declare no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
No funding were received for the preparation of this paper.
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