Motion capture system for applications in robotics

Most common methods for proper 3D capture of human movement require a laboratory environment and setting of markers, sensors accessories body segments. However, the high cost of these equipments is a limiting factor in our work environment. Motion capture systems like Microsoft´s Kinect ^TM camera present alternative new approaches to motion capture technology. This paper proposes the design and implementation of a marker-less motion capture system of low cost, using the Microsofts Kinect camera. The system allows the capture of 20 joint points at 30 frames per second (fps) and exports the Cartesian coordinates (x, y, z) of each joint point for further analysis. Furthermore, the system plots in 3D the human skeleton tracking. The motion capture system was tested to imitate human movement with a planar robot of 9 degrees of freedom (dof), another application was to generate trajectories for a planar biped robot and the last application described is the control of final effector of virtual Puma robot from motion capture. Its data presents less accuracy and a lower rate than market equipment. On the other hand, the low-cost of Kinect sensor and easy installation to use in comparison with traditional methods, show it as an excellent alternative for robotic applications that do not require much accuracy.