jNode: A sensor network platform that supports distributed inertial kinematic monitoring

Because of the intrinsic advantages of wireless inertial motion tracking, standalone devices that integrate inertial motion units with wireless networking capabilities have gained much interest in recent years. Several platforms, both commercially available and academic, have been proposed to balance the challenges of a small form-factor, power consumption, accuracy and processing speed. Applications include ambulatory monitoring to support healthcare, sport activity analysis, recognizing human group behaviour, navigation support for humans, robots and unmanned vehicles, but also in structural monitoring of large buildings. This paper provides an analysis of the current state-of-the-art platforms in wireless inertial motion tracking and presents a novel open-source and open-hardware hybrid tracking platform that is extensible, low-power, flexible enough to be used for both short- and long-term monitoring and based on a firmware that allows it to be easily adapted after being deployed.