Kinematic analysis is indispensable to understanding and characterizing human locomotion. Thanks to the development of inertial sensors based on microelectronics systems, human kinematic analysis in an ecological environment is made possible. An important issue in human kinematic analyses with inertial sensors is the necessity of defining the orientation of the inertial sensor coordinate system relative to its underlying segment coordinate system, which is referred to sensor-to-segment calibration. Over the last decade, we have seen an increase of proposals for this purpose. The aim of this review is to highlight the different proposals made for lower-body segments. Three different databases were screened: PubMed, Science Direct and IEEE Xplore. One reviewer performed the selection of the different studies and data extraction. Fifty-five studies were included. Four different types of calibration method could be identified in the articles: the manual, static, functional, and anatomical methods. The mathematical approach to obtain the segment axis and the calibration evaluation were extracted from the selected articles. Given the number of propositions and the diversity of references used to evaluate the methods, it is difficult today to form a conclusion about the most suitable. To conclude, comparative studies are required to validate calibration methods in different circumstances.
Keywords: calibration; human movement; inertial measurement unit; lower-body kinematics; systematic review.