In Situ Motion Capture of Speed Skating: Escaping the Treadmill

The advent of the Kinect depth imager has opened the door to motion capture applications that would have been much more costly with previous technologies. In part, the Kinect achieves this by focusing on a very specific application domain, thus narrowing the requirement for the motion capture system. Specifically, Kinect motion capture works best within a small physical space while the camera is stationary. We seek to extend Kinect motion capture for use in athletic training - speed skating in particular - by placing the Kinect on a mobile, robotic platform to capture motion in situ. Athletes move over large distances, so the mobile platform addresses the limited viewing area of the Kinect. As the platform moves, we must also account for the now dynamic background against which the athlete performs. The result is a novel, visually-guided robotic platform that follows athletes, allowing us to capture motion and images that would not be possible with a treadmill. We describe the system in detail and give examples of the system capturing the motion of a speed skater at typical training speeds.