Body Capture
Full-body motion capture for robot learning
Hands tell you what the fingers did. A suit tells you what the whole body did to get them there — the reach, the step, the weight shift. For humanoid programmes that difference is the dataset.
Why a suit
Gloves alone cannot teach a humanoid to walk to the shelf
A glove captures 20-odd degrees of freedom at the hand. That is enough to teach a robot arm bolted to a table. It is not enough to teach a humanoid, because most of what makes the task work happens above the wrist — where the torso turned, how far the operator stepped, which shoulder took the load.
A full-body suit captures that as one continuous skeleton stream, which then gets retargeted onto a robot that is not shaped like a person. Pair it with gloves and you get body and fingers in a single take rather than two recordings you have to align afterwards.
This is Station 2 on our station ladder. See teleops stations for where it sits relative to the arm-only and force-lab configurations.
In the catalog
Body capture systems
Inertial suits from Xsens and Rokoko. No cameras, no markers, no studio — these work in the room you already have.
MANUS
MANUS Bodypack Lite | Compact, Wireless Motion Capture
The MANUS Bodypack Lite offers an advanced and lightweight solution for wireless motion capture, optimized for...
NetherlandsMotion Capture
$ 1,580.59excl. tax & freight
View
Quote
xsens
Xsens Link Next-Generation Full System — Size M
Selected configurationConfiguration: Full System — Size MNext-Generation Xsens Link is the flagship high-performance inertial motion capture...
NetherlandsTrackers
Quote required
Get quote
Quote
xsens
Xsens Awinda Wireless Full-Body Motion Capture System
Selected configurationConfiguration: Awinda Full SystemXsens Awinda is a flexible wireless full-body motion capture system with 17...
NetherlandsTrackers
Quote required
Get quote
Quote
xsens
Xsens Awinda Starter Wireless Full-Body Motion Capture System
Selected configurationConfiguration: Awinda StarterXsens Awinda Starter is the accessible entry point into full-body inertial motion capture....
NetherlandsTrackers
Quote required
Get quote
Rokoko
Smartsuit Pro II (Standalone) — Size M
Wireless, camera-free inertial body motion capture for animation, virtual production, games, research, and previsualization. This listing...
DenmarkMotion Capture
$ 2,639.25excl. tax & freight
View
Rokoko
Smartsuit Pro II (Glove Ready) — Size M
Wireless, camera-free inertial body motion capture built for direct integration with Smartgloves. This listing is the...
DenmarkMotion Capture
$ 2,639.25excl. tax & freight
View
Rokoko
Coil Pro
Electromagnetic absolute-positioning add-on for high-precision Rokoko capture. Coil Pro helps reduce positional drift and improves interaction...
DenmarkMotion Capture
$ 3,444.25excl. tax & freight
View
Quote
xsens
Xsens Link Next-Generation Full System — Size S
Selected configurationConfiguration: Full System — Size SNext-Generation Xsens Link is the flagship high-performance inertial motion capture...
NetherlandsTrackers
Quote required
Get quote
Quote
xsens
Xsens Link Next-Generation Full System — Size L
Selected configurationConfiguration: Full System — Size LNext-Generation Xsens Link is the flagship high-performance inertial motion capture...
NetherlandsTrackers
Quote required
Get quote
Quote
xsens
Xsens Link Next-Generation Full System — Size XL
Selected configurationConfiguration: Full System — Size XLNext-Generation Xsens Link is the flagship high-performance inertial motion capture...
NetherlandsTrackers
Quote required
Get quote
Quote
xsens
Xsens Link Next-Generation Full System — Size XXL
Selected configurationConfiguration: Full System — Size XXLNext-Generation Xsens Link is the flagship high-performance inertial motion capture...
NetherlandsTrackers
Quote required
Get quote
Quote
xsens
Xsens Link Sensor Kit — Without eSuit
Selected configurationConfiguration: Sensor Kit — Without eSuitNext-Generation Xsens Link is the flagship high-performance inertial motion capture...
NetherlandsTrackers
Quote required
Get quote
Side by side
Xsens vs Rokoko, on the specs that matter
Every figure below is as published by the manufacturer. Where a vendor does not state a number we say so rather than estimate.
| Xsens Link NG | Xsens Awinda | Rokoko Smartsuit Pro II | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sensors | 17 + prop sensor | 17 wireless trackers | 19 embedded 9-DoF IMUs |
| Update rate | 240 Hz | 60 Hz | 200 fps |
| Latency | 20 ms | 30 ms | Not published |
| Wireless range | 150 m, WiFi 6E | 50 m, Awinda protocol | 100 m, WiFi |
| Battery | 3–4 h internal, 7–8 h external, hot-swappable | 12 h | ~6 h with a 10,000 mAh powerbank (not included) |
| On-body recording | Up to 50 h | 30 s buffering | Not published |
| Magnetic immunity | Stated by vendor | Stated by vendor | Not claimed — drift reduction via sensor fusion |
| Absolute position | — | — | With Coil Pro (2 m core, 5 m fallback) |
| Finger capture | MANUS or StretchSense | MANUS or StretchSense | Rokoko Smartgloves II |
| Robotics licence tier | Xsens Humanoid — Live / Pro / Academic | Xsens Humanoid — Live / Pro / Academic | None — Studio + SDK only |
| ROS 2 · Isaac Sim · MuJoCo | ✓ via Humanoid licence | ✓ via Humanoid licence | Community ROS pipelines |
| Sizes | S–XXL | Strap set + shirts S / L / XXL | S–XL |
| Knoxlabs price | $19,998.50 | $10,488.00 · Starter $5,646.50 | $2,639.25 |
Magnetic immunity is the line to read twice if the suit will be worn near a robot. Motors generate fields, and an inertial suit that has no magnetic-immunity claim will drift when the operator stands next to a running arm. Stock and lead times are confirmed at quote.
The robotics-specific difference
Xsens is the only one of the two with a robotics licence tier. Xsens Humanoid — Live, Pro and Academic — streams full-body human motion to a humanoid at roughly 20 ms latency, with ROS 1, ROS 2, NVIDIA Isaac Sim and MuJoCo integrations, plus batch exporters for training pipelines. Rokoko has Studio and an SDK, but nothing purpose-built for robot teleoperation.
If the suit is for animation or previz, that gap does not matter. If it is for collecting humanoid training data, it is most of the decision.
How to choose
Three budgets, three answers
There is no best suit, only the cheapest one that produces the signal your policy needs.
01
Under $3k — Rokoko Smartsuit Pro II
The entry point. 200 fps full-body capture, 100 m range, sizes S to XL, and Rokoko Studio streams straight into Unreal, Unity, Blender and MotionBuilder. Add Coil Pro when suit drift starts showing up in your data.
Best for: getting a capture programme started, education, previz, and teams whose first question is whether body data helps at all.
02
$5k–$10k — Xsens Awinda
Magnetically immune tracking, 12-hour battery, and straps and shirts included so a shared lab can put it on a different person every hour. 60 Hz and 30 ms latency — slower than Link, plenty for most manipulation work.
Best for: shared research labs, multi-operator programmes, and any rig where the suit will be worn near running motors.
03
$20k — Xsens Link Next-Generation
240 Hz at 20 ms latency, 150 m on WiFi 6E, hot-swappable batteries and up to 50 hours of on-body recording so a collection session is not tethered to a laptop. The washable eSuit is rated for 100 wash cycles.
Best for: production humanoid data collection, long field sessions, and programmes where the dataset is the deliverable.
Building the station
What else the rig needs
01
Pick the suit by signal, not by brand
Ask what the policy needs to see. Gait and whole-body reach? Any of the three. Contact-rich manipulation near a running robot? Magnetic immunity stops being optional.
02
Add fingers
A suit does not capture hands. Xsens takes finger data from MANUS or StretchSense gloves; Rokoko takes it from Smartgloves II. Either way the two streams merge into one skeleton before retargeting.
03
Add the licence
The hardware is half the purchase. Xsens Humanoid, MANUS Core with SDK access, or Rokoko Studio Pro is what turns a stream of joint angles into something a training pipeline can consume.
04
Add the robot and the retargeting
A human skeleton has to be mapped onto a machine that is not shaped like one. See arms & platforms for the target hardware and data & policy for what happens to the episodes after capture.
One thing to check before you order
Rokoko suits are sized S to XL and Xsens Link runs S to XXL — and a suit that does not fit the operator produces data that does not fit anything either. Tell us who will be wearing it and how many of them there are; for shared labs we usually recommend Awinda, because the strap set and shirts make swapping operators a two-minute job.
Body, hands and robot on one purchase order
Suit, gloves, licences, robot and the retargeting stack quoted together. The integration between them is where these projects usually stall.
Talk to us
Tell us what you are building
Send us the task, the robot platform and your timeline. We reply with a configured bill of materials and a quote — usually within one business day.
Form not loading? Request a quote.
Keep exploring
The rest of the robotics stack
Every layer, sourced and deployed by the same team.