Two members of the Health Tech research cluster recently had the opportunity to attend the ECSS conference in Paris. The ECSS is one of the most important sports science events of the year held in Europe. Over 2,300 presentations covered ground-breaking research with the potential to shape the future of sports, including two presentations from MCI.
One of those talks was given by Jasper Volmer, who presented the fascinating work on the use of machine learning for so-called "catch detection" in American football. This innovative method aims to eliminate the tedious process of manually evaluating each catch attempt while providing an accurate classification of catches during practice. This breakthrough technology has the potential to revolutionize training in American football and support a broader range of athletes and coaches.
In addition to the exciting developments in American football, Ephraim Westenberger presented an equally impressive paper on the classification of skateboard tricks using a neural network. This advanced method aims to track and quantify the performance of skateboarders. This can lead to improvement in athletic ability and potentially serve as a valuable evaluation tool in professional competitions. The skateboarding community could benefit tremendously from this innovative technology, as it is still underrepresented compared to conventional sports in terms of data collection and analysis. By accurately tracking and classifying tricks, skateboarders could refine and improve their skills in performing tricks. At the same time, professional competitions might become more fair and transparent thanks to this technology.
These two presentations show that innovations and technological progress are crucial for the sport of the future, whether to improve athletic performance or to increase transparency in judging during competition. The Health Tech research cluster and the Medical & Health Technologies Department are very excited to be a part of ECSS in the coming years and to continue working on innovations in sports and sports technology.
Presentation "Catch Detection in American Football" by Jasper Volmer at ECSS Paris 2023. ©Westenberger
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