Testing a Quaternion Conversion Method to Determine Human Three-Dimensional Tibiofemoral Angles During an In Vitro Simulated Jump Landing

Lower limb joint kinematics have been measured in laboratory settings using fixed camera-based motion capture systems; however, recently inertial measurement units (IMUs) have been developed as an alternative. The purpose of this study was to test a quaternion conversion (QC) method for calculating the three orthogonal knee angles during the high velocities associated with a jump landing using commercially available IMUs. Nine cadaveric knee specimens were instrumented with APDM Opal IMUs to measure knee kinematics in one-legged 3-4x bodyweight simulated jump landings, four of which were used in establishing the parameters (training) for the new method and five for validation (testing). We compared the angles obtained from the QC method to those obtained from a commercially available sensor and algorithm (APDM Opal) with those calculated from an active marker motion capture system. Results showed a significant difference between both IMU methods and the motion capture data in the majority of orthogonal angles (p < 0.01), though the differences between the QC method and Certus system in the testing set for flexion and rotation angles were smaller than the APDM Opal algorithm, indicating an improvement. Additionally, in all three directions, both the limits of agreement and root-mean-square error between the QC method and the motion capture system were smaller than between the commercial algorithm and the motion capture.