Special Seminar: Monday, May 19, 10:00AM-11:00AM
Room 2001 ESB


WIRELESS MEMS INERTIAL MEASUREMENT UNITS FOR SPORTS TRAINING

                                Noel Perkins
                         Arthur F. Thurnau Professor
                           Mechanical Engineering
                           University of Michigan
                                ncp@umich.edu

The fine motor skills needed in many sports are often developed by
respecting the age-old adage that "practice makes perfect." However,
practice alone does not guarantee success, and particularly so when it only
leads to fine tuning fundamentally poor technique. In this talk, we will
review a patented concept for diagnosing proper technique by measuring the
dynamics of sports equipment using MEMS inertial sensors (accelerometers
and angular rate gyros).  When integrated with microprocessors and wireless
transceivers, the inertial sensors form a miniature, wireless inertial
measurement unit (IMU) that can be embedded in common sports equipment.
Doing so enables us to resolve the three-dimensional dynamics of a golf
club, baseball bat, hockey stick, fly rod, etc.for deducing proper
techninque.  We will review the basic theory for using IMUs for measuring
rigid-body dynamics and also describe several ongoing research and
commercialization activities for several sports industries.