Instrumentation of a Concept II rowing ergometer for kinetic and kinematic data acquisition
Traditional research in rowing has either focused on the forces produced or examined the movements of the body, with few researchers investigating the integration of these two major factors. Such information has huge potential with respect to enhancing performance, understanding injury and managing...
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| Published in: | Sports engineering Vol. 7; no. 4 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
01-01-2004
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Traditional research in rowing has either focused on the forces produced or examined the movements of the body, with few researchers investigating the integration of these two major factors. Such information has huge potential with respect to enhancing performance, understanding injury and managing recovery to the sport following injury. This paper reports on the development of the instrumentation of a commercial rowing ergometer for kinetic and kinematic data acquisition. These data are vital towards the final goal of establishing a biomechanical model describing the rowing activity. Such a model can be used to analyze and understand the mechanics of the human body. In this research, the spinal and pelvic movements, during rowing, are of particular interest, with respect to stroke through loading. In addition, the model can also aid in the estimation of the mechanical efficiency of rowing. The initial stages of this project require the instrumentation of a rowing ergometer. In order to capture the data required, a pair of rotary encoders was integrated onto the body of the Concept II Rowing Ergometer. These sensors provide positional information on the travel of the handle. A telemetry system was developed to measure the force exerted on the handle. This wireless system includes a force loadcell engineered between the chain and handle of the rowing machine, and a transmitter mounted on the handle bar. Force data is transmitted to a receiver hooked up to a data acquisition (DAQ) unit. This set-up is supported by a dedicated National Instruments DAQ system and a desktop personal computer, with acquisition rates of up to 1 KHz. The control and playback software is written in LabVIEW, a powerful graphical development environment for signal acquisition, measurement analysis and data presentation. |
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| Bibliography: | SourceType-Scholarly Journals-2 ObjectType-Conference Paper-1 content type line 23 SourceType-Conference Papers & Proceedings-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 ObjectType-Article-3 |
| ISSN: | 1369-7072 1460-2687 |