Verification of Two Least-Squares Methods for Estimating Center of Rotation Using Optical Marker Trajectory

An accurate and robust estimation of center of rotation (CoR) using optical marker trajectory is crucial in human biomechanics. In this regard, the performances of the two prevailing least-squares methods, the Gamage and Lasenby (GL) method, and the Chang and Pollard (CP) method, are verified in this paper. While both methods are sphere-fitting approaches in closed form and require no tuning parameters, they have not been thoroughly verified by comparison of their estimation accuracies. Furthermore, while for both methods, results for stationary CoR locations are presented, cases for perturbed CoR locations have not been investigated for any of them. In this paper, the estimation performances of the GL method and CP method are investigated by varying the range of motion (RoM) and noise amount, for both stationary and perturbed CoR locations. The difference in the estimation performance according to the variation in the amount of noise and RoM was clearly shown for both methods. However, the CP method outperformed the GL method, as seen in results from both the simulated and the experimental data. Particularly, when the RoM is small, the GL method failed to estimate the appropriate CoR while the CP method reasonably maintained the accuracy. In addition, the CP method showed a considerably better predictability in CoR estimation for the perturbed CoR location data than the GL method. Accordingly, it may be concluded that the CP method is more suitable than the GL method for CoR estimation when RoM is limited and CoR location is perturbed.