In Situ Motion Capture of Speed Skating: Escaping the Treadmill
The advent of the Kinect depth imager has opened the door to
motion capture applications that would have been
much more costly with previous technologies. In part, the Kinect achieves this
by focusing on a very specific application domain,
thus narrowing the requirement for the motion capture system. Specifically,
Kinect motion capture works best within a small physical space while
the camera is stationary. We seek to extend Kinect motion capture for
use in athletic training -- speed skating in particular --
by placing the Kinect on a mobile, robotic
platform to capture motion in situ.
Athletes move over large distances, so the mobile platform
addresses the limited viewing area of the Kinect. As the platform
moves, we must also account for the now dynamic background against which
the athlete performs. The result is a novel, visually-guided robotic platform
that follows athletes, allowing us to
capture motion and images that would not be possible with a treadmill.
Development Steps
A slow, high-torque development platform doing walking-speed testing in a gymnasium.
