ACRNet: Attention Cube Regression Network for Multi-view Real-time 3D Human Pose Estimation in Telemedicine

Human pose estimation (HPE) for 3D skeleton reconstruction in telemedicine has long received attention. Although the development of deep learning has made HPE methods in telemedicine simpler and easier to use, addressing low accuracy and high latency remains a big challenge. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-view Attention Cube Regression Network (ACRNet), which regresses the 3D position of joints in real time by aggregating informative attention points on each cube surface. More specially, a cube whose each surface contains uniformly distributed attention points with specific coordinate values is first created to wrap the target from the main view. Then, our network regresses the 3D position of each joint by summing and averaging the coordinates of attention points on each surface after being weighted. To verify our method, we first tested ACRNet on the open-source ITOP dataset; meanwhile, we collected a new multi-view upper body movement dataset (UBM) on the trunk support trainer (TruST) to validate the capability of our model in real rehabilitation scenarios. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of ACRNet compared with other state-of-the-art methods. We also validate the efficacy of each module in ACRNet. Furthermore, Our work analyzes the performance of ACRNet under the medical monitoring indicator. Because of the high accuracy and running speed, our model is suitable for real-time telemedicine settings. The source code is available at https://github.com/BoceHu/ACRNet

Evaluation of Postural Muscle Synergies during a Complex Motor Task in a Virtual Reality Environment

In this study, we investigate how the central nervous system (CNS) organizes postural control synergies when individuals perform a complex catch-and-throw task in a virtual reality (VR) environment. A Robotic Upright Stand Trainer (RobUST) platform, including surface electromyography and kinematics, was used to investigate how the CNS fine-tunes postural synergies with perturbative and assist-as-needed force fields. A control group without assistive forces was recruited to elucidate the effect of force fields on motor performance and postural synergy organization after the perturbation and during the VR reaching task. We found that the application of assistive forces significantly improved reaching and balance control. The group receiving assistive forces displayed four postural control synergies characterized by higher complexity (i.e., greater number of muscles involved). However, control subjects displayed eight synergies that recruited less number of muscles. In conclusion, assistive forces reduce the number of postural synergies while increasing the complexity of muscle module composition.