Tremor analysis by decomposition of acceleration into gravity and inertial acceleration using inertial measurement unit

Abstract

Decomposition of acceleration was investigated as an alternative to commonly used direct spectral analysis of measured acceleration or angular velocity for tremor quantification. Orientation estimation algorithm was devised to decompose the measured acceleration into inertial acceleration caused by sensor movement in inertial reference frame and gravitational artifact. Resulting signals, beside measured acceleration and angular velocity, were used to assess tremor amplitude and frequency by spectral peak detection. The algorithm was tested on experimental data from a clinical study including patients with essential tremor. Influence of sensor calibration and connections of results to analytic approach are analyzed briefly.