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UNISEP: A Unified Sensor Placement Framework for Human Motion Capture and Wearables

Julius Welzel, Sein Jeung, Lara Godbersen, Seyed Yahya Shirazi

TL;DR

The UNISEP framework facilitates consistency, reproducibility, and interoperability in applications ranging from lab-based clinical biomechanics to continuous health monitoring in everyday life.

Abstract

The proliferation of wearable sensors and monitoring technologies has created a need for standardized sensor placement protocols. While existing standards like the Surface Electromyography for Non-Invasive Assessment of Muscles (SENIAM) recommendations for electromyography (EMG) and the 10-20 system for electroencephalography (EEG) address modality-specific applications, no comprehensive framework spans different sensing modalities and applications. We present the Unified Sensor Placement (UNISEP) framework to facilitate reproducible handling of human movement and physiological data across various systems and research domains. The framework provides a method to describe coordinate systems and placement protocols based on anatomical landmarks, and is designed to complement existing data-sharing standards such as the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) and Hierarchical Event Descriptors (HED). Even during its proposal stage, the UNISEP approach has been adopted by the EMG-BIDS extension (BIDS version 1.11.0), confirming the community need for a unified, machine-readable sensor placement framework. The UNISEP framework facilitates consistency, reproducibility, and interoperability in applications ranging from lab-based clinical biomechanics to continuous health monitoring in everyday life.

UNISEP: A Unified Sensor Placement Framework for Human Motion Capture and Wearables

TL;DR

The UNISEP framework facilitates consistency, reproducibility, and interoperability in applications ranging from lab-based clinical biomechanics to continuous health monitoring in everyday life.

Abstract

The proliferation of wearable sensors and monitoring technologies has created a need for standardized sensor placement protocols. While existing standards like the Surface Electromyography for Non-Invasive Assessment of Muscles (SENIAM) recommendations for electromyography (EMG) and the 10-20 system for electroencephalography (EEG) address modality-specific applications, no comprehensive framework spans different sensing modalities and applications. We present the Unified Sensor Placement (UNISEP) framework to facilitate reproducible handling of human movement and physiological data across various systems and research domains. The framework provides a method to describe coordinate systems and placement protocols based on anatomical landmarks, and is designed to complement existing data-sharing standards such as the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) and Hierarchical Event Descriptors (HED). Even during its proposal stage, the UNISEP approach has been adopted by the EMG-BIDS extension (BIDS version 1.11.0), confirming the community need for a unified, machine-readable sensor placement framework. The UNISEP framework facilitates consistency, reproducibility, and interoperability in applications ranging from lab-based clinical biomechanics to continuous health monitoring in everyday life.
Paper Structure (14 sections, 2 figures, 3 tables)

This paper contains 14 sections, 2 figures, 3 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. The UNISEP Framework
  3. Anatomical Coordinate Systems
  4. Anatomical Landmark System
  5. Sensor Placement Protocol
  6. Anatomical Landmark Definitions
  7. Use Case: EMG-BIDS
  8. Discussion
  9. Relationship to Existing Standards
  10. Machine-Readability and Data Sharing
  11. Sensor Orientation
  12. Limitations and Future Work
  13. Conclusion
  14. The Anatomical Landmark Table

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: Landmark visualization for the thorax/upper torso coordinate system. The coordinate system is defined by four palpable anatomical landmarks: Left and Right Acromion Processes (LAP, RAP), C7 vertebra, and Xiphoid Process.
  • Figure 2: Multi-device EMG recording setup from the EMG-BIDS specification examples. The setup includes motion capture markers, a bipolar EMG sensor on the rectus femoris (RF), and two high-density surface EMG (HD-sEMG) arrays on the vastus lateralis (VL) and vastus medialis (VM). UNISEP's hierarchical coordinate system approach enables structured documentation of all sensor positions within a unified framework. Figure adapted from the EMG-BIDS specification (in preparation).