Development of a rowing performance monitoring system

Abstract

A prototype of a product which monitors, displays and records the performance and ability of rowers was developed and tested. This system monitors and records in realtime the orientation and acceleration of the oar together with the mechanical movements that it is subjected to during the rowing session. The parameters outputted include the location of the two ends of the oar, the stroke length, stroke rate, oar shaft deformation, velocity of the oar, force and power transmitted by the rower. These important rowing parameters were all displayed in a graphical manner and saved for later analysis. In order to extract such data, two InvenSense MPU6050 six-axis gyroscope and accelerometer are used, which communicate with the microcontroller via an Inter- Integrated Circuit bus. The microcontroller receives the raw data from the sensors, verifies the correctness of each packet and sends it to the serial port, so that it can be received by the Graphical User Interface (GUI) software. The GUI software coded specifically for this project makes all the required calculations in order to provide a graphical view of the parameters being measured, such as the oar orientation, blade coordinates, oar orientation model, oar deformation model, velocity and acceleration components, expected and actual blade loci, velocity curves, force curves and power curves. The prototype so developed was then tested so as to assess its effectiveness real rowing-like scenarios and it was shown that the system behaves as expected. For example, it was shown that the angles as outputted by the system were within less than 1o to those measured using standard devices. Some possible future enhancements that can be done in order to achieve better results are also proposed.