{"id":1288,"date":"2014-09-17T14:52:54","date_gmt":"2014-09-17T21:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bestperformancegroup.com\/?page_id=1288"},"modified":"2014-09-29T20:48:05","modified_gmt":"2014-09-30T03:48:05","slug":"end-use-of-motion-tracking-data","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/bestperformancegroup.com\/?page_id=1288","title":{"rendered":"Sports Science Applications"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was part of an extremely talented Research & Development (R&D) group at Callaway Golf with a large budget for advanced technologies projects. \u00a0I was also very fortunate to have worked for a number of very bright technical managers<\/a> while working in a variety of roles at Callaway. \u00a0Through the years I was given increased responsibility working on\u00a0Player Profiling<\/a>, Digital Human Modeling<\/a>, and Club Fitting<\/a> projects that were all part of the Product Player Matching initiative<\/a>. \u00a0I started as a Research Scientist in the Research Advanced Technologies Group, advanced to a Senior Research Scientist in the R&D Product Testing Group, then to a Senior Research Scientist in the R&D Product Customization Group, on to a Senior Research Scientist in the Innovation & Advanced Design Group, and finally advanced to an Innovation Specialist in the Innovation & Advanced Design Group.<\/p>\n

A large part of my responsibilities were to select and implement appropriate\u00a0advanced measurement technologies to analyze the golfer swing, player-club interactions, and to develop player profiles for Product Player Matching club fitting initiatives. \u00a0I developed, operated, and managed the Player Performance Bay in the RCH Callaway Golf Test Center employing \u00a0a number of different advanced technologies. \u00a0This included an NDI Optotrak optical tracking system<\/a>, Polhemus electromagnetic system<\/a>, an interchangeable on-board diagnostic (OBD) MEMS-based inertial tracking<\/a> shaft measurement and data acquisition system, high speed video, a dual system launch monitor that recorded both pre-impact club motion and post-impact ball launch conditions, and custom pressure sensors to measure dynamic human grip forces during the swing. \u00a0Many of these advanced technologies were used simultaneously in multi-sensor swing studies (MS3) for advanced scientific analysis of the golf swing all triggered for impact synchronization.<\/p>\n

I have over 10 years of experience with both passive and active optical motion capture systems, electromagnetic systems, and inertial motion tracking systems. \u00a0This includes system setup and calibration, data collection, post-processing, visualization capabilities, and outputting data in any desired format. \u00a0Due to my experiences I am uniquely qualified to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of motion tracking technologies as I have used all 3 types of systems for advanced sports science applications. \u00a0Each technology has positives and negatives and is really dependent upon the end use requirements for selecting the appropriate system. \u00a0An additional factor, and probably the most important, is how the motion output data will ultimately be used. \u00a0The choice of most appropriate motion tracking technology ultimately comes down to the following factors in order from most important to least important.<\/p>\n

1.)\u00a0Cost<\/span><\/strong> – as with any advanced technology, cost is the most important parameter for selection criteria; and the range of costs for motion tracking technology is extremely variable; optical tracking systems<\/a> are significantly higher than any other technology on the order of $100,000 plus for most systems, though the end cost is most dependent upon the number of cameras necessary to capture the motion; magnetic tracking systems<\/a> cost much less than optical tracking systems, and 4 sensor systems can be purchased for $25,000+ all dependent upon the number of sensors required and the analysis software that is included; inertial tracking systems<\/a> are the cheapest of all motion tracking technologies and will continue to come down in price due to improvements in manufacturing and demand for MEMS based electronics; the hardware costs for inertial tracking sensors are very low around $500 – $1,000 per sensor for a well engineered 9DOF sensor with high angular rate and acceleration capabilities and including onboard memory and communications protocols; the price for these systems can be extremely variable based on the exact specs of the sensors, the number of units produced, and on-board data storage and processing capabilities; the biggest cost with inertial tracking systems is the associated software fusion and analysis software used with the sensor suite.<\/p>\n

2.) Kinematic data output requirements<\/span><\/strong> – how the motion data output will be used should be the most important variable when selecting motion tracking technologies. There are basically 3 different ways to use kinematic data outputs:<\/p>\n