Sports Science Research and Technology Support

The purpose of this paper is to describe how a technical university have endeavoured into sports. This short paper will provide examples of a different approach to research in sports combined with technology. Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden has for the last few years become engaged into research using sports as an application area for applied research. The research efforts has utilised the way that sports are organised in Sweden, with the sports confederations and clubs providing the problem areas to base the research around. For the university several aspects have been key in the research efforts. Chalmers will not do research in sport science, but all researchers will stay in their respective area of expertise. This short paper will focus on how this approach strengthens our research in diverse areas such as the automotive industry (with examples from production logistics and crash safety) for the forest industry (composites and cellulose research) and astronomy. But they have now all been further developed by sports.

The present work intends to validate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to subsonic wind tunnel experiments. The models tested in the wind tunnel at NTNU (a mannequin and real cyclist in static position) were scanned using a 3D scanner consisting 48 single-lens reflex cameras surrounding the object in three heights (low/ground-midi-above). The simulations were obtained using the Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes solver STARCCM+ from CD-Adapco. A hybrid meshing technique was used in order to discretize both surface and volume. Polyhedral cells were used on the model surface and in the near volume while a structured grid was used in the rest of the domain. An unsteady RANS approach was used and the turbulence was modeled using the Menter implementation of the k-ω model. The boundary layer was fully resolved and no wall functions were used and. The first part of the paper aims to validate the numerical model. In the second part CFD simulations were used to analyse the aerodynamic properties of two drafting cyclists varying the distance between them from 1 to 4 m with 1 m increments. A good overall agreement between the simulations and the experiments was found proving the value of CFD as a complementary tool to conventional wind tunnel testing.

In the game of Cricket, there have been myriads of instances when dropped catches have resulted in lost matches. Catching requires great concentration, agility, hand-eye coordination and sure-handedness. Knowledge of good catching techniques alone does not suffice, ample practice is required to master the art of catching and building up confidence. Also, a rise in the number of unorthodox shots played by the batsmen in recent times has necessitated the requirement for a better and adaptable catching practice equipment.

This paper presents the application of robotics for providing a robust catching practice to the players. A redundantly actuated 2-DOF 3-UPS Parallel Chain Platform has been proposed for imparting catching practice drills to cricketers. This paper is an extension of the work presented by authors [1]. The basic idea is to swerve a ball shot from a Ball Shooting Machine onto the platform, in a random or pre-calculated direction by changing the orientation of the platform as the ball hits it. As compared to the presently available equipment, this equipment provides greater versatility and an increased degree of realism. We have formulated a methodology to provide practice drills for three types of catches, namely high catches, flat catches and reaction catches.

This paper describes a procedure for optimizing the design of the landing slope of the Zao jumping hill. The concept behind the design of the landing slope is that the landing slope should enable the spectators to witness an exciting spectacle, that the jumpers can land safely, and that it can be constructed with minimum cost. We regard these features as objective functions. The findings can be summarized as follows: it is possible to control the objective functions by changing the profile of the landing slope; there is not a unique optimal design solution, but the Pareto optimal solutions; a landing slope that gives safety on landing is almost equivalent to a landing slope that produces differences in the flight distance due to differences the jumpers’ skill levels; there is a trade-off between the length of the flight distance and safety on landing; the construction cost is influenced by the horizontal distance between the edge of the take-off table and the K-point. The developed procedure would be applicable not only to Zao in Yamagata city, but also to all ski jumping hills in the world.

This research presents an innovative methodology to evaluate the thermal comfort of cycling athletes. It is well known that the thermal comfort of the athletes is linked with their sport performance and safety. The paper describes a computer supported analysis performed for the two venues of the cycling sport (Time Trial and Road Race) of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). The meteorological data of two stations representative of the racing areas have been collected for a period of 20 years. They have been analyzed to produce the wind roses, the average typical days of the meteorological variables, and to calculate two important thermal indices: Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET). The results of this research show the importance of the climatological analysis for optimizing the training and nutrition plans of the athletes.

On 19 October 2014 Matteo Miceli, a known italian oceanic sailor, left the Port of Riva di Traiano (Rome, IT) with the italian sailing boat ECO 40, for the Roma Ocean World Project. This ambitious challenge consists of a non-stop sailing alone around the World in energy and food self-sufficiency. ECO 40 is a Class 40 oceanic vessel (LOA of 12,0 m) that has been equipped with a data acquisition system for measuring both the met-ocean parameters recorded (apparent and real wind speed and wind direction, atmospheric pressure, current velocity, air temperature, sea temperature, etc.) and the kinematic characteristics of the boat itself (i.e., speed and course over ground). Furthermore, the boat has been equipped with three high precision GPS receivers, provided by Leica Geosystem, for measuring the motion of the boat and an inertial platform. Due to these high-precision instruments it is possible to fully measure and characterize the six degrees of freedom of the boat, and accordingly to use her as a sailing wave buoy. Within this paper we present the analysis of the met-ocean data measured by the boat during the storm occurred in the Gulf of Lion on the 21–22 October 2014 that ECO 40 has faced just few days after her departure. Furthermore, by analyzing the GPS signals by means of an innovative application of differential kinematic positioning technique, a detailed analysis of the boat heeling during the Gulf of Lion event has been carried out. The boat heeling measurements have been used to correct the measured wind data that have been compared with the hindcast time series.

Since few years decision-making in team sports has been studied through a Naturalistic Decision-Making (NDM) approach. Considering the need for an intuitive and coordinated decision-making (ICDM), implications from NDM framework are examined according to literature on tactical skills training in team sports. Small-Sided Games (SSGs) are approved by a large majority of coach and researchers. Nevertheless, the pedagogical use of SSG led to implicit learning according to the Led-Constraints framework, whereas it focused on explicit learning according to the Teaching-Games-For-Understanding model. According to NDM, there is a need for a wide range of decision-making processes in team sports, so that a tactical skills training strategy should be based on a blend of implicit and explicit learning. Thus, scientists and coaches in soccer designed the 4P strategy (i.e., Positioning; Practicing; Picturing; Post-analysing). Complementary they explored the role of technology supports embedded into the 4P strategy. Results suggested that soccer players benefited from video feedback because it highlighted relevant configurations of play and helped them to share “pictures” during small-sided games.

There can be little doubt that technology has made a contribution towards improving the preparation that professionals who have dedicated their lives to professional sports receive, both from a technical and a performance point of view. This improvement has taken place mainly on an individual level by means of tools that enable, for example, the performance of an elite sportsperson to be monitored. This monitoring process enables highly valuable information to be obtained from data collected by said tools that both the sportsperson and trainer can use for creating a process of continuous improvement. However, from the team sports viewpoint, in which success or failure depends to a large extent on coordinating efforts and using collective tactics and strategies, monitoring actions and behaviour poses a significant challenge. In light of this, an approach based on the automatic detection and analysis of situations and events in team sports has been put forward in this article. In this way, trainers of, for example, a professional football team would have a tool at their disposal which would have the potential to tell automatically if the players behaved according to the tactics and strategies set before a game. To do so, this approach has come to fruition by means of an expert system made up of a reasoning core that uses a knowledge base in which what a player should ideally do according to what has been stated by the trainer, is defined. In this knowledge base, Fuzzy Logic is defined as, a conventionality that allows the way in which human beings think to be represented and drastically bridges the gap there is between the human expert or trainer and machine. The system designed has been used in the specific domain of professional football to detect and analyse situations in which both individual players and the team as a whole are contemplated. The results obtained have allowed the way the players behave on the games field to be automatically assessed according to the knowledge previously passed on to them by the trainer.