MOTION ANALYSIS SYSTEM AND MOTION ANALYSIS METHOD

• US 20130191063A1
• Filed: 01/15/2013
• Published: 07/25/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/24/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation (Seiko Group)
• Original Assignee: Seiko Epson Corporation (Seiko Group)
• Inventors: NOMURA, Kazuo
• Granted Patent: US 9,625,288 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/89
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1121 Determining geometric values, e.g. centre of rotation or angular range of movement
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1128 using image analysis A61B5/1127 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6895 Sport equipment
• CPC Class Codes: G01D 18/00 Testing or calibrating apparatus or arrangements provided for in groups G01D1/00 - G01D15/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01P 1/12 Recording devices indicating working conditions of vehicles G07C5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00

Abstract

A motion analysis system includes first to N-th (N is an integer of 2 or more) sensor units which is attached to an object, an analysis unit which obtains a plurality of items of sampling data output from the sensor units, to analyze a motion of the object, a synchronization signal sending unit which transmits a first synchronization signal group including N first synchronization signals in order from the first to the N-th sensor unit, and transmits a second synchronization signal group including N second synchronization signals in order from the N-th to the first sensor unit, with respect to sensor unit, and a reference synchronization signal generation unit which generates a reference synchronization signal which is to be a reference with respect to the first to N-th sensor units, based on the first and second synchronization signal groups received by sensor unit.

Claims

1. A motion analysis system comprising:

first to N-th (N is an integer equal to or larger than

     2) sensor units which includes a reception unit of a synchronization signal and a sensor and is attached to an object;

an analysis unit which obtains a plurality of items of sampling data output from the first to N-th sensor units, to analyze a motion of the object;

a synchronization signal sending unit which transmits a first synchronization signal group including N first synchronization signals in order from the first sensor unit to the N-th sensor unit, and transmits a second synchronization signal group including N second synchronization signals in order from the N-th sensor unit to the first sensor unit, with respect to the reception unit which is provided in the first to N-th sensor units; and

a reference synchronization signal generation unit which generates a reference synchronization signal which is to be a reference with respect to the first to N-th sensor units, based on the first synchronization signal group and the second synchronization signal group received by the reception unit which is provided in the first to N-th sensor units.

2. The motion analysis system according to claim 1,

wherein, in the first synchronization signal group and the second synchronization signal group, points as plotted sending times on a time axis are line-symmetric with respect to a line orthogonal to the time axis which passes a point obtained by bisecting an interval between the first synchronization signal group and the second synchronization signal group.

3. The motion analysis system according to claim 2,

wherein a sending interval between n-th (1≦

n≦

N−

1) and (n+1)-th synchronization signals of the first synchronization signal group and a sending interval between (N−

n)-th and [N−

(n−

1)]-th synchronization signals of the second synchronization signal group are equivalent.

4. The motion analysis system according to claim 1,

wherein the reference synchronization signal generation unit generates the reference synchronization signal at intermediate times which are obtained by bisecting intervals of receiving time of the first synchronization signals and the second synchronization signals received by the reception unit which is provided in the first to N-th sensor units.

5. The motion analysis system according to claim 4,

wherein the synchronization signal sending unit sends a plurality of pairs of synchronization signal groups when setting the first synchronization signal group and the second synchronization signal group as a pair of synchronization signal groups, and

the reference synchronization signal generation unit generates the reference synchronization signal at an average intermediate time obtained by averaging the plurality of intermediate times which are obtained from pair of synchronization signal groups from the plurality of pairs of the synchronization signal groups.

6. The motion analysis system according to claim 1,

wherein a host terminal to which the output from the first to N-th sensor units is input is provided,

the analysis unit and the reference synchronization signal generation unit are provided in the host terminal,

a data processing unit is provided in the plurality of sensor units, and

the data processing unit outputs a plurality of sampling data items which are obtained by sampling the output from the sensor in chronological order, and synchronization flags set to two sampling data items which are obtained by sampling at the time of sampling corresponding to the time of receiving the first synchronization signal and the second synchronization signal from the plurality of sampling data items.

7. The motion analysis system according to claim 6,

wherein the reference synchronization signal generation unit sets a reference synchronization flag with respect to the plurality of sampling data items obtained from the first to N-th sensor units, which is sampling data corresponding to an center position of two sampling data items set with the synchronization flags.

8. The motion analysis system according to claim 1,

wherein the reference synchronization signal generation unit is provided in the plurality of sensor units,

the plurality of sensor units further includes a data processing unit,

the data processing unit outputs the plurality of sampling data obtained by sampling the output of the sensor in chronological order, and the reference synchronization flag which is one of the plurality of sampling data items, and which is set to the sampling data corresponding to the time of sampling corresponding to the reference synchronization signal.

9. A motion analysis method for obtaining a plurality of sampling data items output from first to N-th (N is an integer equal to or larger than 2) sensor units attached to an object, to analyze a motion of the object, the method comprising:

transmitting a first synchronization signal group including N first synchronization signals in order from the first sensor unit to the N-th sensor unit, and transmitting a second synchronization signal group including N second synchronization signals in order from the N-th sensor unit to the first sensor unit, with respect to a reception unit which is provided in the first to N-th sensor units; and

generating a reference synchronization signal which is to be a reference with respect to the first to N-th sensor units, based on the first synchronization signal group and the second synchronization signal group received by the reception unit which is provided in the first to N-th sensor units.