Kenan Song | School of Engineering

Continuous and precise measurement of athletes’ physiology conditions, such as motions in complex gymnastics postures, body temperatures as a function of the exercise period, and sweat compositions responding to medicine in-take or regional diets from around the world, has become a prominent way of monitoring their performance and health. For motion detection, current methods such as magnetic motion capture and optical motion capture are generally expensive, and their signals have limited ranges and can be interfered by light or magnetic field. Furthermore, these sensors are usually quite heavy that obstruct body movement, together with thermal and sweat sensors, they can severally deteriorate athletic performances. Alternately, conductive polymer composite fibers have shown potentials in wearable sensors for their low cost, high precision in both small and large strains, high compliance, mechanical durability, and chemically stability. When the composite fiber undergoes certain physical deformation or environmental variation, recording the change in the resistivity would help to deduce the degree of those stimuli. By integrating these fibers into wrist brace, kneepad, or elbow protector, athletes would be able to monitor their physiology conditions (e.g., the wrist/elbow-angle during a free throw, the body temperature/sweat after a five-minute sprint, etc.)

Read the final paper from this GSI-funded project here.

Last Updated July 2021.