Reliability in measurement of three-dimensional anterior pelvic plane orientation by registration with an inertial measurement unit

Abstract

It is strongly challenging to obtain functional movement of the pelvis based on the three-dimensional (3D) dynamic anterior pelvic plane (APP) orientation information. This study provided the 3D APP orientation measurement technique by registration with an inertial measurement unit (IMU), and its reliability was tested. The local coordinate systems of the APP and the IMU sensor were registered using two images of the pelvic part from the frontal and left sagittal views in a neutral standing posture. Then, the measurement errors in the APP orientation were analyzed by comparing the values obtained from manually measured four points in the IMU sensor and the known exact values in 10 different postures. Moreover, the errors between values obtained from manually measured three anatomical points and the known exact values were also compared. The average errors were quite small (less than 0.6°) when measuring from three anatomical points and were acceptable (1.6°–3.4°) when measuring from four points in the IMU sensor. These results indicate that the measurement of APP direction using four points in the IMU sensor could be considered reliable in terms of intra-participant and inter-participant. The present technique to register the IMU sensor position and the APP direction by taking X-ray images from the frontal and sagittal directions can be fundamental information to measure the APP direction during dynamic motion when the IMU position is obtained from the IMU sensor data instead of the four-point location information.