Comparison of the Performance of the Leap Motion ControllerTM with a Standard Marker-Based Motion Capture System.

Amartya Ganguly,Katja Mombaur,Gabriel Rashidi

doi:10.3390/s21051750

Amartya Ganguly, Katja Mombaur + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/s21051750

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Abstract

Over the last few years, the Leap Motion Controller™ (LMC) has been increasingly used in clinical environments to track hand, wrist and forearm positions as an alternative to the gold-standard motion capture systems. Since the LMC is marker-less, portable, easy-to-use and low-cost, it is rapidly being adopted in healthcare services. This paper demonstrates the comparison of finger kinematic data between the LMC and a gold-standard marker-based motion capture system, Qualisys Track Manager (QTM). Both systems were time synchronised, and the participants performed abduction/adduction of the thumb and flexion/extension movements of all fingers. The LMC and QTM were compared in both static measuring finger segment lengths and dynamic flexion movements of all fingers. A Bland–Altman plot was used to demonstrate the performance of the LMC versus QTM with Pearson’s correlation (r) to demonstrate trends in the data. Only the proximal interphalangeal joint (PIP) joint of the middle and ring finger during flexion/extension demonstrated acceptable agreement (r = 0.9062; r = 0.8978), but with a high mean bias. In conclusion, the study shows that currently, the LMC is not suitable to replace gold-standard motion capture systems in clinical settings. Further studies should be conducted to validate the performance of the LMC as it is updated and upgraded.

Highlights

The Leap Motion ControllerTM (LMC) device is a portable, low-cost marker-less motion capture system and has been progressively used to replace gold-standard marker-based motion capture systems, especially in clinical environments
Note that the LMC estimates the joint centre position through a skeletal model that cannot be changed by a third party as access is not granted to make any changes to the algorithm
The Qualisys Track Manager (QTM) on the other hand tracks the markers placed on the bony landmarks of the hand

Summary

Introduction

The Leap Motion ControllerTM (LMC) device is a portable, low-cost marker-less motion capture system and has been progressively used to replace gold-standard marker-based motion capture systems, especially in clinical environments. The LMC is designed to track elbow, wrist and finger joint positions. It is used in a myriad of different scenarios, for example human-robot interaction [1,2,3], surgery training [4] and gesture recognition [5,6]. While the LMC has uses in various hand rehabilitation therapies, it is used as a measurement device. The validation of such marker-less technology is warranted because it has found application in such diverse areas. A number of validation studies have been conducted, but with mixed results

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