Using Kinect to Capture the Joint Angles of Static Driving Posture

Abstract

Anthropometric measurements of driving posture have been an attractive scientific issue concerning drivers’ comfort and safety. However, Kinect, as a low-cost motion capture device, was seldom used. In this study, 10 participants were recruited and 40 experiments were conducted. The driving posture of all participants was captured twice from frontal and sagittal plane. Shoulder flexion angles (SFA) and elbow flexion angles (EFA) were calculated using Kinect-captured skeletal data and compared with the corresponding angles measured with a protractor. Our study revealed a significant lower bias compared with the protractor measured angles (p = 0.000) and more accurate angles (p = 0.026) were found in the sagittal plane than in the frontal plane. The mean bias of SFA and EFA for the frontal plane was 18.8°, while it was 9.7° for the sagittal plane. More robust algorithms are anticipated in future study, and group Kinects may compensate for the low accuracy of single Kinect use.