Body motion tracking for kinematic study is typically done with optical sensors. The user wears markers and the cameras track them to compute the transformation of the motion frame by frame. This method requires a set up of multiple motion capturing cameras and it can only be done within the specific area. The goal of this project is to create a tracking unit that does not require expensive overhead and can be done in any location.

The advancement in micro-machined microelectromechanical system (MEMS) sensors such as accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometers can be used for human motion tracking.

The unit is attached to a body segment or an external housing unit such as a knee brace. The orientation of the unit can be calculated based on the data from all 3 of the sensors. A complementary filter is used to fuse the data together to generate a single Euler angle matrix.

Relative motion between the joint can be calculated from the output of 2 of the measuring units.

The sensors are calibrated with an average static orientation error of +/−0.7 degree and standard deviation of 1.8 degrees. The dynamic orientation error of rotating around a single axis is 2.38, 0.15 and 0.517 degrees with standard deviation of 0.99, 0.98 and 0.7 degree for roll, pitch and yaw respectively.

The initial design shows good result for human body motion tracking. The performance of the unit can be further improved with optimizing the filter and using the data from different type of the sensors to compensate each other.