Human upper body posture estimation from forces exerted on handles

A methodology is presented for upper-body posture estimation in the sagittal plane from force and torque measurements exerted on handles during human standing, in the hypothesis of quasi-static equilibrium. The method consists in setting up constraints related to the geometric equations and the hand-handle interaction. All measured quantities are subject to an uncertainty assumed unknown but bounded. The set membership estimation problem is solved via interval analysis. Guaranteed uncertainty bounds are computed for the estimated postures. The methodology is validated experimentally with actual data. The results obtained are very acceptable.