Golf Swing Motion Tracking Using Inertial Sensors and a Stereo Camera

A golf swing motion tracking algorithm is proposed in which the golf club trajectory (position and velocity) and club face orientation information are given. Two sensors are used in the algorithm: an inertial sensor unit on the golf club, and a stereo camera that captures infrared light emitting diodes (LEDs), also on the golf club. During the address and impact golf swing phases, the camera captures the infrared LEDs on the golf club. Using the infrared LEDs as landmarks, the position and orientation of the golf club are computed. When the golf club is moving, an inertial navigation algorithm is used to compute the golf club trajectory. An indirect Kalman filter with nine states is used to combine the inertial sensor and vision data. The average position accuracy is about 3.6 cm and the maximum error is about 13.2 cm. The proposed system can be used to analyze golf swings quantitatively.