Feature
Smart Solutions for Sports and Fitness
ITRI’s two highlight sports and fitness technologies showcased at CES 2023.
At CES 2023, ITRI’s highlight technologies in sports and fitness include iSportWeaR, a wearable device that monitors physiological data and provides health analysis and management during exercise; and the Digital Twin for Sport Guidance with Vital Sign Sensing, the world’s first virtual coach for indoor bike and flywheel training using contactless detection technology to provide advice on breathing, biomechanics and coordination.
iSportWeaR is a smart personal health management solution for fitness and sporting enthusiasts. Featuring non-contact low-power radar technology, it can be integrated into accessories such as sunglasses and bike handle grips to provide real-time detection and continuous monitoring of physiological parameters. It accurately measures heart rate, breathing rate, and activity behavior such as cycling posture and resting status. This helps athletes better understand their health status and optimize training across various exercises such as running and cycling. Long-term usage history is logged in a personal database, which users can check anytime.
iSportWeaR also provides data for sports injury prevention. When detecting abnormal physiological conditions, it sends out alerts via the smartphone to users, helping to prevent injuries such as heat exhaustion.
The application in bike handle grips is the first of its kind in the current bike accessory market, marking a breakthrough in health-monitoring cycling solutions. ITRI worked with a leading bicycle brand to develop iSportWeaR and is introducing this technology to various pioneering product designs for additional cycling applications.
The iSportWeaR miniature module enables seamless integration into different sporting accessories, and it eliminates the need for sensors that have direct contact with the user’s skin. The sensing device even works with sweat interference and through gloves, and it works indoors or outdoors, rain or shine, in temperatures ranging from 41 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit (5 to 50 degrees Celsius) and relative humidity of 10 to 90%. iSportWeaR uses Bluetooth Low Energy communication to receive and transmit signals, with measurement range for heartbeat rates of 48 to 240 beats per minute (bpm) and respiration rates of 6 to 60 bpm.
The Digital Twin for Sport Guidance with Vital Sign Sensing is the world’s first virtual coach for indoor bike and flywheel training using contactless detection technology and big data analytics to provide advice on breathing, biomechanics and coordination. The system measures respiratory rate via thermal sensing and includes a depth camera for skeletal imaging and motion tracking. It analyzes the user's back, shoulders, elbows, arms, hips, and knees through image-based skeletal movements. It compares collected data with the statistics of world-class cyclists and offers real-time professional-level suggestions on breathing adjustment, motion strength, and body coordination, improving users’ training experience and progress. With no monitoring wearables, users can focus more on realistic road condition simulations and enhance training effectiveness. ITRI has cooperated with world-renowned bicycle manufacturers to create powerful solutions for training athletes with the Digital Twin for Sport Guidance with Vital Sign Sensing.
Additional sports and fitness technologies that ITRI showcased:
- iMetaWeaR is a smart clothing technology enabling haptic feedback via multi-position electrical stimulation to create an enhanced metaverse experience for users playing virtual sports such as boxing and fencing. Dry, washable fabric-based electrodes are screen printed into somatosensory garments, eliminating the need for adhesive electrodes. The elastic feature and customized design offer high comfort, and the robust control mode allows for stimulation variations in an immersive environment.
- The Athletic Armband for Contactless EMG Detection is a capacitive electromyography (EMG) athletic armband for continuous real-time measurement of electric signals from muscles without direct skin contact. This sports armband can measure muscle strength in professional training, providing information including the order of muscle activation, the level of fatigue and injury alerts through an app. The wearable design includes flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) and redistribution layer (RDL) technologies, and the sensing distance is up to 0.3 mm.