Practical sensing for sprint parameter monitoring
Cheng L., Kuntze G., Tan H., Nguyen D., Roskilly K., Lowe J., Bezodis IN., Austin T., Hailes S., Kerwin DG., Wilson A., Kalra D.
Stride-related parameters of sprinters, such as split times (i.e. which is speed-related), foot contact times, stance times, stride/step length, and stride/step frequency, etc. are important factors which affect athletes' performances. Traditionally, this information is captured by biomechanics researchers and coaches using optical-based systems. However, these systems are expensive, time consuming to setup, and have limited viewing angles. Thus, existing biomechanics research work on sprinting is limited to small scale and short studies. This paper presents a practical, cost-effective, user-friendly stride-parameter sensing system - known as the SEnsing for Sports And Managed Exercise (SESAME) Integrated System (IS) - which is the first system for supporting practical and long-term biomechanics research studies in sprinting. The system includes a light-sensor-based split time monitoring system, a radio-based localisation athlete tracking system, a stride length monitoring system, and a centralised data repository. Part of the system has been commissioned at the National Indoor Athletic Centre (NIAC) at Cardiff, UK, since May 2009. © 2010 IEEE.