Xsens bringing motion-tracking advancements to sport

One of the world’s premier producers of motion-tracking hardware and software, Xsens, will soon make its cutting-edge technology available to athletes and teams.

For years, the limits of motion-capture technology has put restrictions on its use in sport. With its advancements, Xsens is set to seriously increase the use of such data in the realm of sport.

One of the common problems that athletes have had with inertial trackers (sensors that capture movement) is the fact that they use magnets, which can be disrupted by metals within close proximity to the sensors. Additionally, the use of a single data-capture point (such as a wrist or ankle band with the sensor attached) has led to inaccurate data. Xsens addresses both of those issues.

Xsens’ sensor system has alleviated the threat of magnetic distortion and increased the accuracy of systems with the development of its MVN suit. The result is not only reliable data but reliable data that can be captured anywhere.

The suit, which has a battery life of 12 hours and 17 self-contained sensors placed at body joints, sounds like it might be cumbersome for athletes. According to trials by the Royal Dutch field hockey organization, Motocross racers, marathon runners and the United Kingdom Winter Olympic athletes, that concern is unfounded.

Xsens technology goes well beyond just the production of MVN suits, however. All the data that the suits are capable of capturing is only useful to athletes if they can translate that data into understandable results and apply their learning to their sport. Xsens provides solutions for that as well.

“It’s part of the software package that we sell,” said Xsens United States sports specialist Aristo Wong. “It translates all the data into a human avatar that you can view on a desktop or tablet screen. Our system is completely wireless and it only takes about five minutes to suit up and set up. Compared to optical tracking, we are a mobile lab so to speak.”

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The application that Xsens is nearly ready to release for public consumption allows athletes to see their movements throughout the recording session in a three-dimensional representation. The application for athletes is not only relevant for spatial tracking but biometric measurements as well.

“I think it’s applicable for both uses,” Wong explained. “Taking cycling as an example, the kind of output that we give is joint angles, center of mass and kinematics. If they want to measure their stress or fatigue level over a certain amount of time, we can get the position on the bike, how they are maximizing their joint angles while they are cycling and other data. Measuring that over time they can see how fatigue affects their output and what adjustments they can make to their training schedule.”

While the program will appeal to individual athletes, Wong says that up to four individuals can use the system simultaneously, making the program appealing to sports teams as well. The program is still being tested in beta version by several institutions like Virginia Tech University, and the release is planned for November of 2017.

Wong says that Xsens hopes to make his product available to the biggest athletes and leagues in sport in the world, and with their advancements, it probably won’t be long until the sporting world takes notice.

“We’ve been around sports for a while now, but I think we are providing so much data now that coaches are trying to figure out what to do with all the data they are getting,” Wong commented. “We are pretty open and there are some teams looking into us in terms of recovery from injury applications. I think a lot of what it will take for us to get to where we want to be is figuring out what kind of data these athletes and teams want to see. That’s something that hasn’t been determined yet and we are working on figuring out.”

The film and gaming industry has been using motion-capture technology for years to enhance its products. With these advancements in the field, athletes will now get to enjoy the same benefits with the latest and greatest way to capture and analyze data thanks to Xsens.