Precise air time determination of athletic jumps with low-cost MEMS inertial sensors using multiple attribute decision making

Abstract

Commercial devices for real-time sports performance measurement are available. The small size and low cost of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) inertial measurement units (IMUs) are exploited in these devices to make their body mountable and affordable for the general public. These devices are widely used in sports such as skiing, snowboarding and mountain biking to measure the air time (AT) of aerial athletic jumps in real time. AT is considered as an important performance variable. However, the performance of currently used real-time athletic jump AT determination algorithms using MEMS IMUs are unsatisfactory in terms of accuracy and reliability. In this study, a new algorithm for AT determination with a head-mounted MEMS IMU is proposed. The algorithm has a probabilistic approach using multiple attribute decision making. The concept of jump characteristic points and a novel method used in this algorithm, namely preceding and following acceleration difference, are introduced. The field experiment ...