Employing Modern Elements of Vehicle Navigation for Integrated Motion Measurement in Sport.

The satellite navigation system GPS has gradually gained a usability that was never expected during its design 30 years ago. Similar statements can also be made for other central elements of modern navigation technology like gyroscopes and accelerometers as well as microprocessors for synchronizing and processing sensor signals. GPS receivers and other navigation sensors are in principle devices that detect single motion components. To obtain a more complete and plainer description of the motion considered, a suitable tight combination of several sensors of different kind should be employed. This leads to integrated navigation or motion measurement which can simultaneously provide a good long-term accuracy and a high resolution with respect to time. In ship, aireraft, and spacecraft navigation the use of such integrated systems is well established. The technological progress as mentioned above suggests now also the utilization for sports science: Indeed, interesting approaches do already exist (at least partially) and show a promising potential for biomechanical analyses, for documentation of training units, and for competition diagnosis. Together with theoretical basics for integrated motion measurement. the paper gives a survey of some realized systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]