Instrumentation of a Skeleton Sled: Novel Tactile Steering Force Sensors

Instrumentation of a Skeleton Sled: Novel Tactile Steering Force Sensors

Rachello, Camilo (TU Delft Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering)

Schwab, Arend (mentor)
Plettenburg, Dick (graduation committee)
van der Wijk, Volkert (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Mechanical Engineering | BioMechanical Design | Sports Engineering

2019-12-18

The purpose of this project is to design and develop a set of force sensors to measure steering forces applied by an athlete down the ice track. Currently, there is not enough information about instrumentation in skeleton, and to maintain competitive advantages, most of the research remains private and unpublished. Athletes use their shoulders and knees to steer down the track. For this reason, four handmade piezoresistive tactile force sensors were built to measure the force applied by each joint. Each sensor has its own model to convert bits recorded into force. Results showed a difference between applied and calculated forces by each model. However, calculated results followed similar trends compared to the real values of the applied force. In addition, a graphical user interface was created to present the results to the athlete in a simple and easy way to read and understand. It is planned to use a shimmer (an inertial measurement unit) to collect information about accelerations developed on each run. Coupling both measurement systems have to be done during the processing stage. Further work has to be done regarding electronics size and testing the systems in a real run down the track.

Skeleton
Sports
Instrumentation
Sports engineering

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:85aa19e0-a3c4-4a6b-9d25-dbf0c2f6c8bd

Student theses

master thesis

© 2019 Camilo Rachello