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Procedia IUTAM 2 (2011) 8692

2011 Symposium on Human Body Dynamics

Integrating ecient kinematics in biomechanics of human motions

Andres Kecskemethya,
a University

of Duisburg-Essen, Chair for Mechanics and Robotics, Lotharstr. 1, 47058 Duisburg, Germany

Abstract Biomechanical modeling of human motion often is based on simple tree-type structures with elementary joint and contact situations. This is adequate for coarse evaluation of motion parameters and their eects but insucient for detailed analysis of joint or system/environment interactions. In this lecture, an object-oriented approach for the modeling of kinematics and dynamics of musculoskeletal motion is presented which is open for integration of arbitrarily complex subsystems and their coupling to state-of-the art numerical and visualization tools. The approach is based on the concept of kinetostatic transmission element which allows one to embed intricate kinematical dependencies in easy-to-use, multilayered objects. Based on this approach, the inverse and direct dynamics problem can be formulated in a highly-ecient and implementation-independent manner, featuring dierent methodologies as avors of the generic transmission properties. This allows one to re-use methods developed for technical systems such as contact eects, multiloop transmission mechanisms, multidisciplinary mechatronic components, and ecient numerical solution schemes. The concepts have been implemented in the object-oriented 3D biomechanical simulation environment MobileBody featuring mechanism surrogates for joint motion, higher-order foot-ground contact, data fusion of MRI and motion capturing, composite numerical clinical scoring algorithms, optimization-based muscle activation identication, verication by interval analysis, and embedded 3D visualization. c 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of John McPhee and J ozsef K ovecses Keywords: Kinematics; gait analysis; biomechanics

1. Introduction Biomechanical analysis of human gait motion with stereophotogrammetry is a well-established technique [1, 2, 3]. For this method, small reective markers are attached to the subject, lighted, and monitored by at least two motion cameras. From the two-dimensional camera images, the position of the markers in space is reconstructed, leading to marker trajectories ri (t) which are stored for later bone motion reconstruction. In gait analysis, the contact wrenches between feet and ground are measured simultaneously with force plates, from which the center of pressure and the
Corresponding

author. Tel: +49-203-379-3344; fax: +49-203-379-2494 Email address: andres.kecskemethy@uni-due.de (Andres Kecskemethy)

2210-9838 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.piutam.2011.04.009

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magnitude of the ground reaction force are computed. Techniques for determining marker positions and ground forces are mature and well-established and sagittal plane motion can be estimated from this data with good repeatability. Hence current gait analysis methods are well suited for quantied evaluation of the therapeutic outcome, if a relative improvement needs to be veried objectively [4]. For estimating parameters that can not be measured directly and for reliable prognosis and surgery planning, multibody models of the musculoskeletal system are required [5, 6]. Current implementations of these models were done using commercial, general purpose multibody simulation systems like ADAMS [7, 8] or by specialized programs such as SIMM ([9]) or AnyBody ([10]). These models can not predict kinematics and statics of the muscles properly, unless accurate estimates of the relative joint motion are available, which is still an unsolved problem. As an example, the identied dynamic bone motion is inuenced signicantly by the marker protocol [11, 12, 13], marker placement and skin artifacts [14, 15, 16]. In addition, unknown dimensions and inertia properties of the musculoskeletal system are often computed by scaling anthropometric data from single specimen measurements [6, 17]. This leads to signicant errors, as shown by [18] for the case of inertia parameters of childrens leg segments. These errors are avoided by using patient-specic computer tomography data [19], from which bone geometry can be segmented easily, but exposes the subject to ionizing radiation. Another open question is the identication of muscle force recruitment ([20], for which a full forward dynamics model of the human motion and detailed cost functions (see, e.g. [21]) are required, and for which again fast computer code is necessary. 2. Materials and methods The present approach employs an object-oriented implementation of the multibody dynamics of human motion called MobileBody to realize an embeddable, highly ecient representation of forwards or inverse dynamics (g. 1). a a The modeling is based on the C++ library M a aBILE [22] which has been already employed for modeling, simulation and design of technical systems, including robotics ([23]), mining machinery ([24]), up to roller coasters ([25]). In the setting of human motion reconstruction, the package could be used to integrate geometrical data from magnet resonance imaging (MRI) in conjunction with a semi-automatic model-based segmentation algorithm into the model ([26]), to derive ecient multibody code for muscle recruitment analysis using forward dynamic and considering verication issues ([27]), and also to model the foot/ground contact using simplied at cylinder-plane contact geometries [28]. Recently, the library has also been extended to perform computations with intervals, thus allowing to track errors using methods of interval analysis ([29]). Such veried computations may be useful to detect the areas in which results can lie. By the use of object-oriented notions, it is easy to dene embeddable models for the dynamics which can be extended to include new types of features and also to be coupled with other disciplines. In contrast to the closed simulation systems, this oers new possibilities of interdisciplinary modeling and simulation [30]. These possibilities are briey summarized in this context. The core component of the integrated simulation system MobileBody is the mechanical modelling environment a a M a aBILE ([22]). Its implementation using object oriented programming makes it easy to combine it with image processing code, visualization libraries and libraries for reading/writing les containing the model parameters. Furthermore, simple model components can be rened and replaced by more complex elements later. These may be individual models of anatomical joints of special interest or hand-tailored analysis modules for the clinical application. a a With M a aBILE, mechanical components are modeled as abstract mappings, termed kinetostatic transmission elements, which transmit motion and loads between sets of input and output variables called state objects. In this way, any mechanical model can be assembled by concatenating these kinetostatic transmission elements as are the parts of a a the real system. Since M a aBILE is implemented using the object-oriented programming language C++, new elements can be added easily using inheritance [31]. Mathematically, the operations related to the kinetostatic transmission elements correspond to well-known mappings of dierential geometry: the transmission of position and velocity correspond to a nonlinear mapping between two smooth manifolds and the corresponding push-forward function for tangent vectors, respectively, while the force mapping corresponds to the pull-back function being applied to cotangent vectors. From the computational point of view, the concept renders a responsibility-driven client/server model [32] in which multibody operations are dened as services that an object provides at any time during program execution

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Fig. 1: Functional principle of the simulation environment

independently of its internal implementation according to a specic contract. In the present mechanical modeling, the basic contract of kinetostatic transmission elements consists of two main services: one for transmission of motion and one for transmission of forces. Basically, most of the elements in the human gait model can be described by elementary objects such as joints, line segments for muscles, etc. More involved methods are required for the spine and the shoulder models, which display complex kinematical and soft-tissue interrelationships. In the following, we present, as an illustration of highercomplexity kinematical eects, a special foot model which allows for stable one-foot stance due to the modeling as circle-plane contacts. In forward dynamics simulation of biomechanical motion, the reaction forces between foot and oor are to be determined as a function of the foot penetration. Presented here is a simple foot model consisting of two rigid segments (fore foot and hind foot) connected by a revolute joint with a nonlinear spring-damper element in parallel. As shown in g. 2, the input frame K of the foot element is xed to the hind foot. Its origin is located at the center of the upper ankle joint, the z-axis is aligned with the axis of the ankle joint and the direction of the x-axis is chosen such that it is parallel to the ground in neutral null position. The revolute joint connecting the hind foot to the fore foot is aligned with the z-axis and its position relative to the input frame is described by the vector r 3 . The contact between the foot and the ground is modeled with two regularized circle-plane contact elements as described by [33]. One contact circle (radius R2 ) is xed to the hind foot at position r2 parallel to the xz-plane of K . The other contact circle is xed to the fore foot (radius R1 , oset r 1 ). The unknown parameters of the contact elements, of the inter-segment revolute joint stiness and the oset vectors r1 , r 2 and r 3 are identied using measured contact forces and foot positions. From this measured data, the wrench wa (ti ) at the ankle joint is computed at m discrete points in time ti . The ankle joint wrench is applied to the input frame

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y z

joint axis
x

hindfoot contact cylinder

forefoot contact cylinder ground plane

y z

K r2
x

r3 k ,c
+

R2

hindfoot contact circle

r1 R1

intersegment joint with elastic element forefoot contact circle ground plane

Fig. 2: Elastokinematic foot model with circle-plane contact pairs

K of the foot element and the static equilibrium pose of the foot model under this load is determined for i = 1, . . . , m. In turn, the pose at static equilibrium is parameterized by the global coordinates rsim,i of the origin of frame K and the of K and compared to the measured pose parameterized in the same way (rmeas (ti ) and p (ti )). Bryant angles p sim,i meas Parameter estimation is performed by minimizing the least squares cost function F( x) = 1 2
m i=1

(rmeas (ti ) r sim,i )2 + ( p

meas

(ti ) p

sim,i

)2

(1)

where x is the vector of unknown parameters of the foot model. Fig. 3 shows the measured angle between hindfoot
measured model

35 30 25

rotation about z-axis in

20 15 10 5 0 5

10 3.8 3.9 4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4

t in seconds

Fig. 3: Measured and simulated orientation of hind foot with identied parameters

and ground and the simulated angle obtained for the identied parameters, which lead to acceptable dierences of maximally 5 . The described multibody models were incorporated in a modeling and simulation environment called MobileBody that provides the basic features required for biomechanical gait analysis and can be extended both for dynamical issues and for specic modules that focus on clinical applications. The emphasis of the program is to supply

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a highly-ecient code paired with an intuitive interface such as to be able to support the doctors in planning and assessment of medical treatments, for which an intuitive user interface was developed. 3. Results Based on this modeling and simulation environment, it is possible to perform inverse and direct dynamic analysis, as well as to implement additional features such as augmented-reality 3D motion visualization and analysis for patient-specic gait diagnosis (g. 4). These features are believed to become of higher importance when medical personnel will use the tools, as they will require a more intuitive human-machine interface than todays more numerical view. Tools that are of importance in this setting are the data fusion of MRI and motion capturing for better patientspecic data ([30]), composite numerical clinical scoring algorithms ([30]), optimization-based muscle recruitment identication ([20]) and verication by interval analysis [34]. Based on these methods, patient-specic numerical medical diagnosis might become possible at the doctors desk, which is a goal which might be reached in the near future.
patient-specific bone geometries (MRI und X-Ray)
XML IV, WRL, STL

icon Nexus Vicon

Motion analysis system: Vicon Nexus Augmented-Reality Server biomechanical prognosis system Studierstube visualization library

VICON PC

marker trajectories (Patient) & jointaxes and jointangles position und rotation HMD

AR Server

marker positions ( patient)

marker positions (HMD)

3Dbone model Vicon Kameras Tracking Tracking

virtual overlay of patient and bone model

Patient mit Markern

Arzt mit HMD

Fig. 4: Augmented reality environment with virtual X-Ray functionality

4. Discussion By the use of object-oriented paradigm, new possibilities arise for (1) easily exchanging biomechanical eects from simple to complex in a running biomechanical model, (2) intuitive user interfaces and (3) embedding of biomechanical issues in interdisciplinary applications. Such aspects might become important when pursuing a medical tool suitable for planning and assessment of operations and rehabilitation measures of the human musculoskeletal system in clinical practice. 5. Acknowledgement Funding by European Union (European regional development fund ERDF) under initiative of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research of the State of Northern Rhine-Westfalia, project number 005-0608-0004 is gratefully acknowledged.

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