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SonicSeat: design and evaluation of a seat position tracker based on ultrasonic sound measurements for rowing technique analysis

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Abstract

A significant number of rowers do not receive technical coaching. However, proper technique is a key component both for achieving competitive success and in preventing injuries or long-term induced postural deformity. In cooperation with national rowing coaches we developed a sensor system to continuously monitor rowers’ seat positions, enabling us to evaluate their rowing technique. We use offline data analysis, which complements existing state-of-the art methods based on video footage. Both quantitative analyses for coaches as well as qualitative and visual feedback for athletes is provided. We evaluated the accuracy of the SonicSeat system in a lab environment and obtained mean relative errors between 0.74 and 2.36 % for all but one of our performance metrics. We tested our system on the water and present exemplary data and analyses.

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Notes

  1. The Fédération Internationale des Sociétés d’Aviron (FISA) is the international rowing federation.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Georg Rauter, Roland Sigrist and Prof. Roland Riener from Sensory Motor Systems Lab., ETH Zurich, Switzerland for their dedicated support in the recording of the optical motion tracking data. Further thanks go to all participants of the studies and pre-studies, and the collaborating coaches for their feedback. Last but not least, thanks to Rosa Brown (topproofreading.com) for proofreading the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wearable Computing Laboratory, ETH Zurich, Gloriastr. 35, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland

    Franz Gravenhorst, Bernd Tessendorf, Rolf Adelsberger, Bert Arnrich & Gerhard Tröster

  2. Institute of Numerical Methods in Mechanical Engineering and Graduate School of Computational Engineering, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Christoph Thiem

  3. Movement Science Department, Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra, Australia

    Conny Draper

  4. Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Exercise and Sport Science, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Richard M. Smith

Authors
  1. Franz Gravenhorst
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  2. Christoph Thiem
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  3. Bernd Tessendorf
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  4. Rolf Adelsberger
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  5. Bert Arnrich
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  6. Conny Draper
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  7. Richard M. Smith
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  8. Gerhard Tröster
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Correspondence to Franz Gravenhorst.

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Gravenhorst, F., Thiem, C., Tessendorf, B. et al. SonicSeat: design and evaluation of a seat position tracker based on ultrasonic sound measurements for rowing technique analysis. J Ambient Intell Human Comput 6, 613–622 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12652-013-0216-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12652-013-0216-5

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