Robust Optical User Motion Tracking Using a Kalman Filter

Optical tracking has a great future in applications of virtual and augmented reality. It will assist to enhance the acceptance of virtual reality user interfaces, since optical tracking allows wireless interaction and precise tracking. Existing commercial motion capture systems are neither working reliably in real-time. Additionally, only few optical trackers can smooth and predict motion and include a motion estimator supplying similar results to the presented approach. A Kalman filter formulation is proposed, providing the robustness required by most virtual reality applications. The filter is evaluated with respect to different rigid body motions and provides precise prediction. Thereby, the frequency and reliability of the optical tracker is enhanced. Predicted motion can be used to cope with display lags of complex virtual scenes or with acquisition or communication delays. The proposed filter may also be used with nonoptical based trackers providing the pose of an object with six degrees of freedom.