Estimation of Pose and Medial/Lateral Contact Force Using Multi-Axial Load Measurements From an Instrumented Knee Implant

Accurate prediction of contact forces in the knee could be useful for the study of neuromusculoar coordination, the development of treatments for knee osteoarthritis, and the design of knee replacements with improved functionality or durabilty. To assist in these endeavors, researchers have recently designed and constructed novel knee implants capable of measuring four [1] or six [2] loads in vivo. These measurements provide valuable data for evaluating in vivo knee load predictions generated via computational models. One of the challenges of using these experimental data is converting the measured loads into medial and lateral contact forces — quantities that have clinical significance. Furthermore, it would be valuable if in vivo load measurements could be converted into accurate tibiofemoral pose estimates so that knee kinematics could be inferred from these unique load measurements as well.