The added value of musculoskeletal simulation for the study of physical performance in military tasks

The performance of military tasks is often exacerbated by additional load carriage, leading to increased physical demand. Previous studies showed that load carriage may lead to increased risk of developing musculoskeletal injuries, a reduction in task speed and mobility, and overall performance degradation. However, these studies were limited to...

Obstacle Avoidance Behaviour during Locomotion: Strategy Changes as a Result of Visual Field Limitations

In order to walk through structured surroundings without colliding with any obstacles or parts of that environment, humans rely for the most part on the visual system. Therefore, impairment in the acquisition of visual information poses a threat to efficient and save locomotion through structured environments. One form of impairment is the...

Obstacle crossing with lower visual field restriction: Shifts in strategy

In this study, the authors investigated how restriction of the vertical viewing angle influences obstacle-crossing behavior. Twelve participants stepped over obstacles of different dimensions while wearing visual-field-restricting goggles. Using full-body motion capture, several kinematic measures were extracted and analyzed. Results indicate...

3D gait assessment in young and elderly subjects using foot-worn inertial sensors

This study describes the validation of a new wearable system for assessment of 3D spatial parameters of gait. The new method is based on the detection of temporal parameters, coupled to optimized fusion and de-drifted integration of inertial signals. Composed of two wirelesses inertial modules attached on feet, the system provides stride length,...

Exploiting motion capture to enhance avoidance behaviour in games

Realistic simulation of interacting virtual characters is essential in computer games, training and simulation applications. The problem is very challenging since people are accustomed to real-world situations and thus, they can easily detect inconsistencies and artifacts in the simulations. Over the past twenty years several models have been...

Marker-referred movement measurement with grey-scale coordinate extraction for high-resolution real-time 3D at 100 Hz

A review of early history in photography highlights the origin of cinefilm as a scientific tool for image-based measurement of human and animal motion. The paper is concerned with scanned-area video sensors (CCD) and a computer interface for the real-time, high-resolution extraction of image coordinates of moving markers. Algorithms and...

A puzzling percept of stimulus stabilization

A visual illusion is reported which comprises the following: when a monitor with a moving constant velocity grating is swayed in front of a subject, the grating may be perceived as freezing or decelerating on the screen. This percept appears to depend on the magnitude and direction of the retinal grating velocity, relative to that of the moni...