For the EEGsynth project I have developed a full-body 8-channel motion capture system. It is based on the MPU9250 9-DOF inertial motion unit, which contains a three-axis accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer. I have combined this with the Madgwick AHRS algorithm, which takes the raw sensor data and computes the yaw, pitch and roll.

The design is based on one battery operated main unit that is worn for example in a Fanny pack around the waist, and up to 8 sensors that are attached to the arms, legs, etc.

The main unit contains a Wemos D1 mini, which is based on the ESP8266 module. It uses the TCA9548 I2C multiplexer to connect a maximum of 8 MPU9250 sensors.

The data from the IMU sensors is streamed using the Open Sound Control (OSC) format. The sampling rate that can be achieved with one sensor is around 200 Hz, the sampling rate for 8 sensors is around 60 Hz.

For initial configuration of the WiFi network it uses WiFiManager. After connecting to my local WiFi network, it has a web-server through which the configuration can be set, which includes the number of sensors and the destination host and port for the OSC UDP packets.

For the IMUs I am using MPU9250 modules that I purchased on Ebay for about 3 USD each.The MPU9250 units fit very nicely in a Hammond 1551MINI enclosure.

I designed the enclosure for the main unit in Fusion360 and printed it on my Prusa I3 MK3 3-D printer. I made two motion capture systems so far, one with black and one with white PLA filament.

The Arduino sketch and more technical documentation can be found here on GitHub.