Modular wireless inertial trackers for biomedical applications

In the past few years, semiconductor based wireless positioning and tracking devices have successfully integrated into consumer electronics devices. The sensors track the movement and the orientation of the device to provide a positioning feedback to the program. However, the accuracy of these trackers is typically not acceptable for biomedical application which demands high accuracy. Previous study was performed to access the feasibility of using semiconductor based inertial measurement units (IMU) for human motion tracking. After evaluating the strength and weakness in the previous IMU modules, several modifications and improvement were made. A modular IMU was designed with high resolution ADC. A statistical based approach for orientation tracking is currently being developed and preliminary data were presented and compared with other tracking algorithms.