Changes are on the horizon with wearable sensor technology for athletes who stand to gain major competitive advantages. The new electronic gadgets have been successfully tested with Chinese badminton players, indicating a possible beak in technology for monitoring and improving sport performance.
By incorporating immediate feedback in monitoring systems on flexible sensors, performance will now be enhanced. Elite coaches and trainers have been using video analysis among other existing wearable technology, though these methods do not provide an exhaustive understanding of the capacities of an athlete, performance will just now take a different turn.
Revolutionary Sensor Development
Researchers at Lyuliang University, China, have developed an affordable, flexible, and customizable sensor that specifically enhances the performance of badminton players, aimed at making up for the limitations of conventional performance monitoring equipment. Being an extremely precise and quickly reactive sport, the different characteristics of badminton make it unique when assessing performance.
Posture, footwork, arm swings, and muscle strength pose challenges to monitoring; however, this is usually limited to video angles and commonsensical discomfort caused by rigid sensors. Dr. Yun Yang, the study leader, explains that their team combined expertise in flexible sensor technology with intelligent perception systems to implement a quantitative analysis of badminton techniques, thus providing professional insights into these techniques for the athletes.
Cutting-Edge Sensor Design
The scholars took a trial with the use of triboelectric sensors in their integrated health monitoring system as thesensors were appropriate for flexible wearable applications; they work through triboelectricity-in otherwords, generating an electrostatic charge as a result of contact and movement between materials-without the need for external power.
To minimize interference while undergoing movement, the team designated a 3D-printed device in an arch shape that flexes under loading and is enveloped in thermoplastic elastomer. This design, while comfortable to wear, is also amenable to customization to fit individual athletes, as elucidated in their article published in APL Materials.
Instant Feedback and Versatile Applications
According to Dr. Yang, these sensors can really be categorized as “sport-friendly,” since they successfully accommodate all kinds of dynamic movements in sports. It can be applied on the wrists, elbows, shoulders, fingers, knees, even going one step further to look around the waist and also in the neck area.
The intelligent badminton monitoring system comprises of three 3D-printed sensors, a multichannel acquisition card, and neural network algorithms. This avant-garde setup serves in online monitoring and provides immediate feedback with outstanding accuracy up to 97.2% to recognize seven common badminton movements automatically.
Looking Ahead
According to Dr. Yang, this research recommends a novel approach to the current 3D-printed triboelectric sensors in dealing with the strains and stresses induced by heavy angles at joints or flexion.” He also added, “This advancement is not only beneficial in improving the monitoring and analysis for badminton but also for other smaller intelligent sports applications.”
It signifies very important improvement of intelligent sports monitoring and analysis in consideration of big data. Team led by Dr. Yang is dedicated to the advancing technology of triboelectric sensors, aiming to seek alternative pathways for human health monitoring and pathological diagnostics.