Accuracy of Inertial Motion Sensors in Static, Quasistatic, and Complex Dynamic Motion

Inertial motion sensors (IMSs) combine three sensors to produce a reportedly stable and accurate orientation estimate in three dimensions. Although accuracy has been reported within the range of 2 deg of error by manufacturers, the sensors are rarely tested in the challenging motion present in human motion. Their accuracy was tested in static, quasistatic, and dynamic situations against gold-standard Vicon camera data. It was found that static and quasistatic rms error was even less than manufacturers’ technical specifications. Quasistatic rms error was minimal at 0.3 deg (⁠$±0.15deg$ SD) on the roll axis, 0.29 deg (⁠$±0.20deg$ SD) on the pitch axis, and 0.73 deg (⁠$±0.81deg$ SD) on the yaw axis. The dynamic rms error was between 1.9 deg and 3.5 deg on the main axes of motion but it increased considerably on off-axis during planar pendulum motion. Complex arm motion in the forward reaching plane proved to be a greater challenge for the sensors to track but results are arguably better than previously reported studies considering the large range of motion used.