WearDY: Wearable dynamics. A prototype for human whole-body force and motion estimation

Motion capture is a powerful tool used in a large range of applications towards human movement analysis. Although it is a well-established technique, its main limitation is the lack of dynamic information such as forces and torques during the motion capture. In this paper, we present a novel approach for human wearable dynamic (WearDY) motion capture for the simultaneous estimation of whole-body forces along with the motion. Our conceptual framework encompasses traditional passive markers based methods, inertial and contact force sensor modalities and harnesses a probabilistic computational framework for estimating dynamic quantities originally proposed in the domain of humanoid robot control. We present preliminary experimental analysis of our framework on subjects performing a two Degrees-of-Freedom bowing task and we estimate the motion and dynamic quantities. We discuss the implication of our proposal towards the design of a novel wearable force and motion capture suit and its applications.