Pose measurement of Anterior Pelvic Plane based on inertial measurement unit in total hip replacement surgeries.

Abstract

In Total Hip Replacement (THR), inaccurate measurement of Anterior Pelvic Plane (APP), which is usually used as a reference plane, will lead to malposition of the acetabular prosthesis. As a result, the risk of impingement, dislocation and wear will increase and the safe range of motion will be limited. In order to acquire the accurate pose of APP, a measurement system is designed in this paper, which includes two parts: one is used to estimate the initial pose of APP and the other is used to trail dynamic motion of APP. Both parts are composed of an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and magnetometer sensors. An Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is adopted to fuse the data from IMU and the magnetometer sensors to estimate the orientation of the pelvis. The test results show that the error angle between calculated axis and true axis of the pelvis in geodetic coordinate frame is less than 1.2 degree, which meets the requirement of the surgery.