Real-time whole-body human motion tracking based on unlabeled markers

In this paper, we present a novel online approach for tracking whole-body human motion based on unlabeled measurements of markers attached to the body. For that purpose, we employ a given kinematic model of the human body including the locations of the attached markers. Based on the model, we apply a combination of constrained sample-based Kalman filtering and multi-target tracking techniques: 1) joint constraints imposed by the human body are satisfied by introducing a parameter transformation based on periodic functions, 2) a global nearest neighbor (GNN) algorithm computes the most likely one-to-one association between markers and measurements, and 3) multiple hypotheses tracking (MHT) allows for a robust initialization that only requires an upright standing user. Evaluations clearly demonstrate that the proposed tracking provides highly accurate pose estimates in realtime, even for fast and complex motions. In addition, it provides robustness to partial occlusion of markers and also handles unavoidable clutter measurements.