A benchmark comparison between reconfigurable, intelligent and autonomous wireless inertial measurement and photonic technologies in rehabilitation

Abstract

Advanced sensory systems address a number of major obstacles towards the provision for cost effective and proactive rehabilitation. Many of these systems employ technologies such as high-speed video or motion capture to generate quantitative measurements. However these solutions are accompanied by some major limitations including extensive set-up and calibration, restriction to indoor use, high cost and time consuming data analysis. Additionally many do not quantify improvement in a rigorous manner for example gait analysis for 5 minutes as opposed to 24 hour ambulatory monitoring. This work addresses these limitations using low cost, wearable wireless inertial measurement as a mobile and minimal infrastructure alternative. In cooperation with healthcare professionals the goal is to design and implement a reconfigurable and intelligent movement capture system. A key component of this work is an extensive benchmark comparison with the 'gold standard' VICON motion capture system.