IMU Driven OpenSim: Mountain Biking

See more videos like this: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLacwAD_DGbZWgYpNHBycpFS5iodWEiask A few weeks ago I went mountain biking with one of my childhood friends. Being a big fan of merging technology with his everyday life, he agreed to put on several wearable sensors to help me collect the data needed for this video. Using a handful of wireless sensors (Vicon Blue Trident IMUs) and GPS data, we were able to capture full body kinematics of mountain biking far away from any lab. One powerful advantage to this approach is that the sensors do not need to be in range of any type of camera or any other device. Full body kinematic data was collected for more than a mile of biking, without any need for additional calibration. As you can imagine, this kinematic data offers several intriguing potential insights. Evaluation of rider performance and rider experience with sensitivities to bike design (and potential refinements) immediately comes to mind. Other ideas include metabolic analyses, how approaches in novice and expert athletes differ, and the effects of clothing/protective gear on user posture/comfort. Fusing the GPS data with the IMU data opens the door to evaluating instantaneous rider performance outcomes and mapping them to explicit location/terrain/grade factors. As this data is already in the OpenSim format, analyzing muscle forces is also readily available and offers even more types of useful analyses.