Swimming and IMU sensors in action

An invitation to Bec Pahl’s PhD confirmation seminar. Ms Pahl is a sports scientist with Swimming Australia and a QAS/Griffith PhD student studying the use of inertial sensors as an aid for training in swimming.

Thesis: Analysing front crawl biomechanics using an IMU-based method.
Date: Monday 12th December 2016
Time: 11am – 12noon
Venue: G16_1.11, Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus

Aims of the project: Given the technological problems that exist in analysis of swimming biomechanics, there are two major concerns in assessing and monitoring swimming performance. Firstly, there is limited knowledge of a swimmer’s change in technique over the whole distance swum. For example, due to limitations in technology, it has previously been difficult to monitor and quantify biomechanical aspects of swimming over distances more than 25 m, thus limiting the knowledge of technical changes that may occur, whether they are planned or not. This leads to the primary focus of this thesis, which is to examine the influence of increasing intensity and fatigue on velocity as well as front crawl stroke kinematics. Secondly, the current biomechanical monitoring systems within the DTE for swimming requires high staff demands, time-costly set up, is limited to specialized technology pools, and is often restricted to qualitative feedback. Using an IMU-based system to monitor swimmers in the DTE offers several improvements: the IMU is user-friendly, time-efficient and provides quantitative feedback using a system that is portable, individual, small, and lightweight. This system has already proven capable of collecting information in the field without constraining or limiting athletes’ and coaches’ activities, allowing a more effective method of analysis (Bergamini et al., 2013). Unfortunately, the aquatic environment has slowed the progression of IMU use in swimming, although recent developments in hardware allows for practical application. Therefore the secondary focus of this thesis is to investigate the current biomechanical analysis systems used in the DTE and the introduction of IMU to the competitive and training environments to improve the accuracy, reliability and efficiency of quantitative feedback.

Please join her supervisors (Lloyd, Burkett, James, Pease, Milburn) and colleagues in what is sure to be an interesting and insightful seminar.