Keeping tabs on athletes

Microelectronics may bring in the gold for Australian athletes at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

The Cooperative Research Centre for Microtechnology (CRCM), in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), has developed an unobtrusive sensing system that provides feedback on the athlete's actions and performance, enabling the coach to see flaws and fine-tune in a manner that was not possible before.

So far, a range of prototypes has been used in rowing, rugby, swimming, running and kayaking.

The most advanced version underwent its first big field trial at the World Rowing Championships in Europe in August last year. The success of the new technology even had to withstand a protest from the German rowing team.

"The rowing device provides on-water analysis and vision to the coach covering all the key movements like speed, strength, stroke length, effort, boat depth and so on. It lets you micro-manage the entire performance of the athlete," says CRCM commercial director Damian Lismore.

"The systems are built around commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products that have been configured in a smart way," says Clive Davenport, CEO of CRC.

Similar technology has also been stitched into the shorts of Rugby Union players, to help the coach gauge levels and patterns of activity and tiredness and tune training regimes to match conditions.

Built around physiological sensors and data loggers, the secret behind the system is the software analysis and Davenport credits his software group with having developed algorithms to analyse the mass of data and present these in a coach-friendly manner.

"Using feedback provided by the system, we can now calibrate the performance of an athlete in several dimensions and measure against the requirement to win that elusive gold medal. We are adjusting our training regime accordingly," says Prof Allan Hahn of AIS.