Wearable Motion Capture System Evaluation for Biomechanical Studies for Hip Joints

Human motion capture (MOCAP) systems are vital while determining the loads occurring at the joints. Most of the clinical MOCAP systems are very costly, requiring investment and infrastructure. Therefore, alternative technologies are in demand. In this study, a novel markerless wearable MOCAP system was assessed for its compatibility with a biomechanical modeling software. To collect evidence, experiments were designed in two stages for quantifying the range of motion (ROM) of the hip joint, in vitro and in vivo. Three constrained single-plane motions—abduction/adduction, flexion/extension, and internal/external rotation movements of the active leg—were analyzed. The data were collected from 14 healthy volunteers, using the wearable system and a medical grade optoelectronic MOCAP system simultaneously and compared against. For the in vitro study, the root-mean-square error (RMSE) for the abduction/adduction motion of the hip joint was calculated as 0.11 deg/0.30 deg and 0.11 deg/0.09 deg, respectively, for the wearable and the opto-electronic system. The in vivo Bland–Altman plots showed that the two system data are comparable. The simulation software is found compatible to run the simulations in offline mode. The wearable system could be utilized in the field of biomechanics software for running the kinetic simulations. The results demonstrated that the wearable system could be an alternative in the field of biomechanics based on the evidence collected.