Project Description

Principal Investigators: Xavier Rosell Ferrer (CREB), Josep Maria Font Llagunes
Funding company: International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF)
Duration: 10/2014 – 06/2015
Amount: 68 000 EUR
Project in collaboration with the Instrumentation and e-Health area of CREB

Abstract

The purpose of the RWECS project is to develop an electronic sensor to be able to detect an athlete’s loss of contact with the ground in the sport of race walking. The developed sensor has to be able to fit in commercial shoes without any modification of the shoe. The development of the system is divided in the following stages:

  • Stage 1: Checking the operating principle and its precision using live test;
  • Stage 2: Developing the full real system to be used in competitions;
  • Stage 3: Developing a commercial version of the system for use in training by athletes.

In this project Stage 1 is considered. The design of a preliminary insole demonstration prototype will be developed and the necessary instrumentation to evaluate the system arranged. We will also select all the instrumentation required to perform the tests in order to evaluate the accuracy of the prototypes in the future. Preliminary measurements on the first prototype will be performed to evaluate the feasibility of the selected solution, the type of sensors to be used and the instrumentation to make the evaluation tests. Also, a review of the state-of-the-art in energy harvesting will be done.