exIMUs: An Experimental Inertial Measurement Unit for Shock and Impact Detection in Sport Applications

Wearable technology for physical activity recognition has emerged as one of the fastest growing research fields in recent years. A great variety of body-worn motion capture and tracking systems have been designed for a wide range of applications including medicine, health care, well-being, and gaming. In this paper we present an experimental inertial measurement system for physical impact analysis in sport-science applications. The presented system is a small cordless wearable device intended to track athletes physical activity during intensive workout sessions. The main distinctive feature of the system is its capability to detect and measure a wide range of shock intensities typical for many active sports, including martial arts, baseball, football, hockey, etc. Tracking of the sport specific irregular and fast movements is another important aspect addressed in the presented experimental system. In this paper we present the hardware-software architecture of the system and discuss preliminary in-field experimental results.