Real-Time Whole-Body Human Motion Tracking Based on Unlabeled Markers

In this paper, we present a novel online approach for tracking whole-body human motion based on unlabeled measurements of markers attached to the body. For that purpose, we employ a given kinematic model of the human body including the locations of the attached markers. Based on the model, we apply a combination of constrained sample-based Kalman filtering and multi-target tracking techniques: 1) joint constraints imposed by the human body are satisfied by introducing a parameter transformation based on periodic functions, 2) a global nearest neighbor (GNN) algorithm computes the most likely one-to-one association between markers and measurements, and 3) multiple hypotheses tracking (MHT) allows for a robust initialization that only requires an upright standing user. Evaluations clearly demonstrate that the proposed tracking provides highly accurate pose estimates in real-time, even for fast and complex motions. In addition, it provides robustness to partial occlusion of markers and also handles unavoidable clutter measurements.