Oct 22 2010
Scientists from Imperial College London, Queen Mary universities and Loughborough have been researching on advancing new sensors for various sports that will help in guiding the athletes and their coaches by monitoring the performance of the players in the sports field.
For this four-year Elite Sport Performance Research in Training (ESPRIT) scheme, sensing devices will be deployed for gathering live data of the athletes with respect to their physiology, biomechanics and genetic identity that will be compared to their activities during their performance. This information will furnish awareness about the bodily actions and will facilitate them to rapidly get adjusted to the training procedures and techniques so that the athletes can deliver their best performances in the 2012 Olympics as well as in the future.
The primary models of the devices have been released by UK Sport and encompasses Imperial’s tiny accelerometers for the healthy and disabled athletes in calculating their low-force speeds; Loughborough’s ergometers in monitoring the performance of cyclists for duplicating their force and abilities; Loughborough’s underwater sensing devices for knowing the swimming force exerted and Queen Mary’s skin implantable sensors for tracing the level of lactate and oxygen in the body.
The sensors will be advanced further and tested by next year and will be utilized with Team GB athletes in the lead-up for 2012 London Olympics. The project has been financially supported by UK Sport and EPSRC for implementing it in the Olympics.
This type of approach can also be deployed in military and other industries with intense oil and gaseous atmospheres.
Source: www.uksport.gov.uk