An Approach to Determining the Kinematic Parameters of Biomechanical Systems with Applications to the Wrist

This paper presents an accurate and robust approach for determining the kinematic parameters of biomechanical systems. A computationally efficient algorithm is given for estimating the translation vector and rotation matrix of a moving body from measurements of the position of at least four spatially distributed points on the body. This algorithm provides an estimation of the spatial location and orientation of the body which is less sensitive to measurement error than other methods. It is indicated how the kinematic parameters can be used to determine the linear translation and angular rotation of the moving body in terms of an anatomically relevant coordinate system. The design, fabrication and calibration of an inexpensive, serial-link, three-dimensional mechanical digitizer for use in data acquisition is described. This device is kinematically optimized and is easy to use for accurate data collection. An implementation of this approach to quantifying certain aspects of the kinematics of the human wrist is discussed.