As part of the 15th International Motorcycle Conference in Cologne, the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) presented the award for Young Researchers. Our colleague Wolfgang Kremser was awarded 2nd place for the paper “Towards Full-Body Motion Capture of Motorcyclists In Situ – A Validation Study and User Report.”

Body posture when riding a motorcycle has a strong influence on vehicle dynamics, which makes it particularly interesting for vehicle designers. However, standard motion detection systems are unsuitable for outdoor use as they require several permanently installed cameras. Therefore, Wolfgang Kremser investigated the feasibility of an alternative using mobile inertial sensors worn directly on the body. This sensor data was validated on a motorcycle simulator in comparison to an optical motion detection system. The investigated sensor system showed a high level of agreement with the gold standard and appears to be suitable for recording general movement patterns when riding a motorcycle.

Abstract:

During motorcycle riding the driver’s posture significantly impacts the vehicle dynamics, which makes its study important to design engineers. Current gold standard motion capture systems are unfit for in situ use due to their reliance on multiple fixed cameras. This study investigates the viability of an alternative that uses inertial sensor data called MVN Awinda. We perform concurrent validation with an optical motion capture system on a motorcycle simulator. MVN Awinda recorded some runs in excellent quality, while others had poor data quality, which calls the system’s reliability into question. In runs with good data quality, MVN Awinda achieved a high correlation with the gold standard. We conclude that MVN Awinda is viable for recording general motion patterns during motorcycle driving.

To the paper: Wolfgang Kremser et.al. (2024): Towards Full-Body Motion Capture of Motorcyclists In Situ – A Validation Study and User Report. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Motorcycle Conference.