Mechanical devices currently used to test sports equipment are limited to one or two degrees of freedom and cannot replicate complete human movements. The purpose of this study was to investigate the capabilities of a six-degrees-of-freedom industrial robot (iRobot) to replicate the ground contact phase of human running. The objectives were as follows: to quantify the repeatability of the iRobot system; to assess the ability of the system to replicate heelstrike running and forefoot running.High-speed video and force plate data were collected for a single-subject heelstrike running and forefoot running. The iRobot was programmed to replicate the two footstrikes and then to perform 500 cycles of each. System kinematics and ground contact forces were recorded every tenth cycle.The kinematic repeatability of the iRobot was extremely good (less than 2 mm mean standard deviation in all marker trajectories). The peak vertical ground reaction forces showed systemic trends specific to the footstrike; heelstrike 3 per cent decrease and forefoot 19 per cent increase over the 500 cycles. iRobot replication of the footstrikes met with some success, particularly for the forefoot running.The iRobot generated highly repeatable kinematics and demonstrated potential for applications within the footwear industry. A number of improvements to the system were identified which could further improve its ability to replicate human running.
Citation: RONKAINEN, J. and HARLAND, A.R., 2010
DOI: 10.1243/17543371JSET67Abstract: The sports ball market is a multi-million dollar industry; original equipment manufacturers are continually trying to develop sports balls and in order to achieve improvement in performance they often utilize launch and/or flight monitors to allow consistent measurement and benchmarking of their balls under test. This paper introduces a laser tracking system (LTS), which has been specifically designed for soccer ball tracking. This LTS combines two different concepts together in an innovative optical solution to allow the system to track an arbitrarily moving soccer ball in a completely non-contact and non-marking methodology, tracking a ball in real time up to approximately 10 m/s. The system was programmed to act as a launch monitor capable of reporting the ball launch velocity and launch angle. In order to achieve the fully functional LTS, the hardware and software choices are clearly outlined, as well as describing the tracking methodology used to achieve the real-time tracking capability.
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