Synthetized inertial measurement units (IMUs) to evaluate the placement of wearable sensors on human body for motion recognition

Movement data from athletes are useful to quantify performance or more specifically the workload. Inertial measurement units (IMUs) are useful sensors to quantify body movements. Sensor placement on human body is still an open question that this paper focuses on. A method that develops synthesized inertial data is proposed for determining optimal sensors placement. Comparison between virtual and real inertial data is achieved. Training motion recognition algorithm on synthesized and real inertial data exhibits less than 7% difference. This method highlights the ability of the numerical model to determine relevant sensor placement of IMUs on human body for motion recognition algorithm using virtual sensors.