New wearable sensors give athletes high-tech edge over competitors

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

New wearable sensors will give athletes a high-tech edge over their competitors, say scientists.

The state-of-the-art electronic aids have already been successfully trialed on badminton players in China.

The flexible sensors coupled with intelligent monitoring are designed to improve performance by providing direct feedback to the players.

Top-level sports coaches and trainers currently use intelligent data monitoring through video and wearable sensors to help enhance athletic conditioning.

But scientists say traditional video analysis and wearable sensor technologies often "fall short" when tasked to produce a comprehensive picture of an athlete’s performance.

Now researchers at Lyuliang University in China have developed a low-cost, flexible, and customizable sensor for badminton players that overcomes current monitoring constraints.

Badminton is known for its many technical movements and the dynamic speed and precision required to play successfully.

Monitoring the postures, footwork, arm swings, and muscle strength shown by badminton players is limited by video shooting angles and the discomfort of rigid wearable sensors.

But study leader Dr. Yun Yang said: “We integrated our expertise in flexible sensor technology and intelligent perception systems into badminton motion monitoring for a quantitative analysis of badminton techniques, to provide more professional guidance for badminton players."

He said the team used triboelectric sensors to construct their intelligent monitoring system because they are easy to adapt to flexible, wearable devices.

Dr. Yang explained that a triboelectric sensor transfers charge from one material to another when the materials come into contact and slide past each other. No external power supply is required.

To minimise interference during bending and twisting, the researchers built a 3D-printed flexible arch-shaped sensor encased in a thermoplastic elastomer.

This design is comfortable to wear and can be easily customized to individual athletes, according to the findings published in the journal APL Materials.

Dr. Yang says the "sport-friendly" construction of the sensor is responsive to body movements often seen in sports and is suitable for many active body parts - including wrists, elbows, shoulders, fingers, and knee joints, as well as bending points at the waist and neck.

The intelligent badminton sports system was made from three of 3D-printed sensors, a multichannel acquisition card, and neural network algorithms.

Dr. Yang said the technical design provides online monitoring and real-time feedback to the athlete.

It recognizes seven typical movements in badminton - including forehand serve, backhand serve, forehand hook, and backhand hook, with a recognition accuracy rate of 97.2%.

Dr. Yang said: “Our research provides new ideas for solving the problems of large joint bends or twists faced by current 3D-printed triboelectric sensors.“

He added: "It offers a new solution for monitoring and analyzing triboelectric sensors in badminton and can be extended to other smart sports fields.

"This has great potential for intelligent sports monitoring and analysis in the era of big data.”

Dr. Yang's team plans to continue focusing on triboelectric sensors to propose new solutions for human health monitoring and pathological diagnosis.