Internet of Things in Sport Training: Application of a Rowing Propulsion Monitoring System

The application of electronics, communication, and telemetry technologies in the field of sport training is a major trend today, specially with the explosion of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. In particular, the rowing sport is one of the disciplines that could benefit from efficient, easy to integrate, and low cost IoT technologies to help analyzing and optimizing the performance of the rowers. However, traditionally monitoring tools in rowing are expensive and very limited. In this work, a rowing propulsion monitoring system for onboard analysis of rower’s key parameters is proposed, based on the development of a low-cost IoT device that combines sensing, global positioning, wireless communication, and data fusion for runtime information processing and monitoring on the boat. A power calculation model during the stroke is also proposed in order to estimate the energetic efficiency of the strokes in relation with the boat velocity. An acceleration sensor on the oar is used to decompose the movement; a torsion sensor to calculate the rower’s strength and energetic values; and navigation data for speed and distance values of the boat. A comprehensive comparative experimentation in a real rowing training scenario is performed, applying the proposed system and considering various rowers. The results show that the device provides a good vision in time of the movement and also very valuable technical information that can be used by rowers and trainers to define specific optimization profiles and improvement targets.