Biomedical Transducers a.a.

2011/12
Inertial Sensors
Daniele Antonioli
Luca Faggianelli
Jian Han
Mekki Mtimet

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 1

 Outline

 Introduction to Inertial Sensors;

 Static Evaluation of the Noise;

 Sit to Stand Task Evaluation;

 Conclusions.

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 2

 Inertia and Inertial Frame
• Inertial Frame of Reference: is a frame in a
state of constant, rectilinear motion with
respect to one another: an accelerometer at
rest in one would detect zero acceleration;
• Newton’s First Law of Inertia: an observer in a
inertial frame of reference observes a body:
inertia is the natural tendency of that body to
remain immobile or in motion with constant
speed along a straight line;

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 3

 Inertia and Inertial Frame
• Newton’s Second Law: A force will accelerate
a body, in the direction of the force at a rate
inversely proportional to the mass of the
body;
• Mass is the linear quantification of inertia;
• The laws of Classical Mechanics
(Biomechanics included) are valid and
maintain the same form in all inertial
reference systems.

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 4

 What is a sensor?
• Instrument capable to transduce a physical
quantity to a measurable electric signal;

• Accuracy vs Precision;

• Inertial sensor: functioning principle based on

inertial phenomena.

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 5

 Inertial Sensors
• Accelerometers: sense linear acceleration
[m/s^2] along a specific axis;

• Gyroscopes: sense angular velocity axis,

measured in [rad/s];

• Magnetometer: sense the strength of a

magnetic field, measured in [mGauss].
6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 6
 Inertial Sensor Benefits and
Applications
• Low cost;
• Small size, Portable;
• Ultra Low-power systems;
• Wireless.

• Ambulatory monitoring;
• Unsupervised monitoring;
• Fall & Gait;
• Activity detection.

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 7

 2.STATIC CALIBRATION
EXPERIMENT

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 8

 2.1 Brief Hardware Description

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 9

 2.2 Static Noise Evaluation

2.2.1 Description

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 10

 INERTIAL MEASUREMENT UNITS
XSENS SENSOR(with cables) OPAL SENSOR(wireless)

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 11

 2.2.2 Evaluate and characterize the
noise in terms of mean and standard
deviation of the ouputs

• Mean() function
• Std() function

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 12

 The results for XSENS IMU are as follows:

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 13

 The results for OPAL IMU are as follows:

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 14

 2.3 Evaluate the drift effect

• Detrend() function
• Polyfit() function, y=mx+b

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 15

 The results for XSENS IMU are as follows:

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 16

 The results for OPAL IMU are as follows:

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 17

 2.4 What are the main difference
between the noises on each sensor?

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 18

 Ay vs Ay1

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 19

 From these plots we can conclude that:

• The Xsens IMU, has overall better

performance with respect to the Opal
IMU;
• The Xsens trend of noise drift is almost
parallel to the time axis and the signals
have lower offsets with respect to the
Opal signals.

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 20

 2.5 Does the standard deviation of the noise
correspond to that reported in the data sheet?

• Xsens: As we can see in the tables above, the data reported in the
datasheet and our measured ones, differ from a factor of ±.001; So we
obtain very good measurements in terms of accuracy and precision;
• Opal: In this case we have to convert the data from [μg/»Hz] to [m/s2]
for the linear acceleration Noise and from [°/s/»Hz] to [rad/s] for the
angular velocity, using the bandwidth data B = 50[Hz]. Also in this case
we obtain good measurement in terms of accuracy and precision.

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 21

 3. Sit to Stand
• Opal IMU1 placed on the Thigh, in lateral
position;
• Opal IMU2 placed on the Trunk, at L5 height;

• 4 trials with 5 repetitions at different speed;

• f_{sample} = 128[Hz];

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 22

 Sit to Stand

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 23

 Extracted Signals

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 24

 Digital Filtering
Because of Noisy signals: Lowpass Filtering needed

f cut
Wn
f sample Normalized CutOff Frequency
2

[b,a] = butter(order,Wn,type): extract the coefficients;

filtfilt(b,a,input): No Phase Shift, forward + backward

filtering.

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 25

 Algorithm
Pulses
LPF
Gyro(z) Detection

Acc(x,y)

Edges Integration
Detection

Knee Timings
Validation Angles
Results

Good/Bad

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 26

 Results: Plots
Thigh Accelerometer x and y
axis Thigh Gyroscope z axis

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 27

 Results: Table
4 Trials 5 Repetitions StS = Sit to Stand Task TtS = Time to Sit Task

StS Time mean TtS Time mean StS Angle TtS Angle
[s] [s] mean [°] mean [°]

Trial 1 1.7984 1.4375 94.7484° - 90.1806°

Trial 2 1.391 1.1719 96.3518° - 92.9096°

Trial 3 1.4672 1.3531 75.5568° - 71-7260°

Trial 4 .9906 .09562 71.6656° - 69.1158°

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 28

 Sit to Stand Conclusions
+ Results achievable with only 1 IMU (on the
thigh)
+ Robust algorithm

• Kalman fusion filter to improve the algorithm

6/16/2012 Biomedical Transducers - Inertial Sensors 29