Sensor Data Fusion for Full Arm Tracking Using Myo Armband and Leap Motion

The Myo Armband (Myo) is a sensor which can be attached to the forearm, and allows to send to devices equipped with Bluetooth muscular patterns of arm movements triggered by some gestures made by the hand. Also, it produces rotation data based on a gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer embedded on it. The Leap Motion (LM) is a sensor-based cameras and infrared lights, which allows accurately to track the hands motion, including fingers. Therefore, this work describes the use of sensor data fusion techniques to combine the data from both sensors in order to create a 3D virtual simulation in real-time of an arm motion, including the forearm, hand and fingers. The purpose of this combination is also improve the performance, aiming to overcome the main sensors' limitations when they are used individually, as occurs with Myo, which is limited to produce only forearm motion data and the LM, which has a limited field of view and range tracking. The experiment results shows that the studied algorithm is able to combines the data from both sensors achieving a considerable gain in the precision and tracking of the arm.