Design of a marker-based human motion tracking system

In this paper a complete design of a high speed optical motion analyzer system has been described. The main core of the image processing unit has been implemented by the differential algorithm procedure. Some intelligent and conservative procedures that facilitate the search algorithm have also been proposed and implemented for the processing of human motions. Moreover, an optimized modified direct linear transformation (MDLT) method has been used to reconstruct 31) markers positions which are used for deriving kinematic characteristics of the motion. Consequently, a set of complete tests using some simple mechanical devices were conducted to verify the system outputs. Considering the system verification for human motion analysis, we used the system for gait analysis and the results including joint angles showed good compatibility with other investigations. Furthermore, a sport application example of the system has been quantitatively presented and discussed for Iranian National Karate-kas. The low computational cost, the high precision in detecting and reconstructing marker position with 2.39 mm error, and the capability of capturing from any number of cameras to increase the domain of operation of the subject, has made the proposed method a reliable approach for real-time human motion analysis. No special environment limitation, portability, low cost hardware and built in units for simulations and kinematic analysis are the other significant specifications of this system. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.