The wish of many sports scientists and trainers is accessing performance diagnoses data of athletes during training or competition. This data concerns the external conditions (e.g. speed and distance) as well as the internal (physical) strain of the players. For collecting this performance data, we have developed an analysis system, consisting of a high resolution video-system together with a wireless sensor network.
In order to record the physiological data (heart rate) of the athlete, a custom-built sensor module has been developed and integrated into a sports shirt. The integrated sensors collect the physiological data. Following the data collection some signal processing is optionally performed and the data is transmitted via a wireless communication technology to a central computer.
We use an adopted Suunto Oy Foot Pod to measure online the current speed of an athlete and compute its overall distance through integration. In physical and tactical analysis of indoor sport games path information of the players is of great importance. In order to acquire players’ path information, a training session or game is captured by a video-system consisting of two cameras which are mounted in the ceiling of a sports hall. The video data is post-processed in order to identify positions of the players and to track all players on the field.
The recorded data of the mobile devices can be processed and visualised online. For example during the sports event, the heart rate can be monitored and the trainer can decide on substituting a player based on his heart rate profile. Another application of our system is the substantial evaluation of the covered distance of basketball players per quarter. The results of this study will be presented in this paper.