Development and Evaluation of a Low-Drift Inertial Sensor-Based System for Analysis of Alpine Skiing Performance

In skiing it is important to know how the skier accelerates and inclines skis during turn avoid injuries improve technique. The purpose of this pilot study with three participants was develop evaluate a compact, wireless, low-cost system for detecting inclination acceleration in field based on inertial measurement units (IMU). To that end, commercial IMU board placed each ski behind boot. With use an attitude heading reference algorithm included sensor board, orientation data were obtained (roll, pitch, yaw) by fusion. Results demonstrate proposed IMU-based can provide reliable low-drifted up 11 min continuous usage worst case. Inertial angle from compared collected video-based 3D-kinematic its operation terms correlation performance. Correlation coefficients between 0.889 (roll) 0.991 (yaw) obtained. Mean biases ?1.13° 0.44° 95% limits agreements 2.87° 6.27° calculated 1-min trials. Although low mean achieved, some limitations arose precision pitch roll estimations could be due sampling rate allowed fusion initial zeroing gyroscope.