The Use of Microsoft Kinect for Human Movement Analysis

The purpose of this study was to provide evidence of reliability and validity for the use of a Microsoft Kinect system to measure displacement in human movement analysis. Three dimensional (3D) video motion systems are commonly used to analyze human movement kinematics of body joints and segments for many diverse applications related to gait analysis, rehabilitation, sports performance, medical robotics, and biofeedback. These systems, however, have certain drawbacks pertaining to the use of markers, calibration time, number of cameras, and high cost. Microsoft Kinect systems create 3D images and are low cost, portable, not markers required, and easy to set up. They lack, however, evidence of reliability and validity for human movement kinematics analysis. Twenty-six participants were recruited for this study. Peak Motus version 9 and Microsoft Kinect system with customized skeleton software were used to collect data from each subject sitting on a platform moving horizontally at the speed of 2.4 meters per minute. The Peak Motus system demonstrated higher degree of reliability for all body joints when compared to the Kinect system. In terms of validity evidence, the Kinect system demonstrated a stronger agreement to the Peak Motus system for the left and right knee joints. The results of this study support the literature and indicate that the Kinect system has potential to be used as a tool to measure and analyze human movement kinematics.

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