Golf Swing Measurement and Analysis System

• US 20120115626A1
• Filed: 01/17/2012
• Published: 05/10/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/09/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Golf Impact, LLC
• Original Assignee: Golf Impact, LLC
• Inventors: Davenport, Roger
• Granted Patent: US 8,888,604 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 473/223
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2071/0625 Emitting sound, noise or music
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2071/063 Spoken or verbal instructions
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2220/40 Acceleration
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2220/56 Pressure
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2225/50 Wireless data transmission, e.g. by radio transmitters or telemetry
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 24/0006 Computerised comparison for qualitative assessment of motion sequences or the course of a movement
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 53/0454 Strengthening ribs on the rear surface of the impact face plate
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 53/0466 wood-type
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 60/00 Details or accessories of golf clubs, bats, rackets or the like
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 69/3632 Clubs or attachments on clubs, e.g. for measuring, aligning A63B69/3614 takes precedence; clubs for swinging exercises in general A63B15/00
• CPC Class Codes: Y10T 29/49764 with testing or indicating

Abstract

An integrated golf club and analysis system that measures and analyze the performance characteristics of both: 1) a free golf swing without impact with a golf ball and 2) a golf swing with ball impact analysis. Free swing analysis provides critical information needed to analyze swing style so that dynamics swing characteristics optimization can be evaluated throughout the entire swing without ball impact, while impact analysis provides critical information on ball impact location on the club face, however, they cannot be measured simultaneously since ball impact eliminates the ability to identify the swing metric peaks such as velocity if it were to occur after ball impact. To achieve both, an integrated electronics golf club head comprises multiple types of sensors for measuring club head motion, impact and spatial location information with a weight and balance of a regulation golf club head.

Claims

1. ) A golf club head made of electrically conducting material and having an internal cavity comprising at least:

a) a club face for striking a golf ball

b) one or more sensor(s) for measuring acceleration on three orthogonal axes mounted with said cavity

c) one or more impact sensing elements embedded in a monolith located within said club face

d) said sensors are electrically connected to electronics, and said electronics comprise at least;

i) circuitry for sampling and capturing said plurality of sensor signals and

ii) circuitry for a radio wave transceiver for transmitting and receiving radio wave and said radio wave transceiver further comprises

(1) circuitry for measuring receiver signal strength of received radio waves

e) an antenna system electrically connected to said radio wave transceiver and said antenna system further comprises at least two electrically conductive elements and the first electrically conductive element is the said electrically conducting club head shell.

f) an energy storage system, such as a battery or capacitors, electrically connected to said electronics to provide operational power.

2. ) The golf club head as recited in claim 1, further comprising

a) an energy harvesting assembly that harvest energy from said impact sensor elements and uses said harvested energy to recharge said energy storage system.

3. ) A method of design of the golf club head as recited in claim 1 to result in a club head that has substantially similar weight and center of gravity as that of a regulation club of the of similar type comprising:

a) a means of optimizing each electronic sub assembly for minimal weight combined with a means of optimizing the location of the each said sub assembly within the club head shell combined with a means of optimizing the club head shell structure with variable wall thickness profiles.

4. ) A golf swing and or impact measurement and analysis system comprising

a) a golf club comprising a shaft, a club head, and the club head further comprising a club head top surface and a club head face;

and

b) club head further comprises

i) an acceleration measurement assembly mounted within the club head for measuring acceleration in three separate orthogonal directions defining a measurement axes coordinate system and

ii) one or more impact sensor elements located within club face of club head for measuring ball impact forces and ball impact location on club face

iii) circuitry capturing acceleration measurements and impact sensor elements measurements and for measuring receiver signal strength of received wireless signals and transmitting acceleration measurements and impact measurements receiver signal strength measurements out of the club head wirelessly as club head transmitted measurements;

c) a means for receiving club head transmitted measurements wirelessly at a wireless USB module that is further connected to a user interface device such as a laptop with a computational engine, the computational engine having typical input/output port formats and a display;

d) a golf swing model stored on the computational engine comprising multiple levers including at least one rigid lever and at least one non-rigid lever,

e) a first computational algorithm that operates on said computational engine that interprets said club head transmitted acceleration measurements within boundary conditions of said golf swing model and detects if said acceleration measurement assembly alignment is misaligned and calibrates said club head transmitted measurements; and

f) a second computational algorithm that operates on said computational engine that interprets said club head transmitted acceleration measurements or said club transmitted acceleration measurements calibrated by the first computational algorithm within boundary conditions of said golf swing model to define dynamically changing relationships between an inertial axes coordinate system defined by said golf swing model and said measurement axes coordinate system during a golf swing. The said dynamically changing relationship defines the measurements results time line.

g) A third algorithm that interprets the receiver signal strength measurements to define a correlation between the said measurements results time line and associated spatial relationship between the club head to the location of the said wireless USB module.

5. ) A golf swing and or impact measurement and analysis system as recited in claim 4 comprising:

a) a means for calculating the dynamically changing characteristic of club head velocity for a substantial portion before, through and after a maximum velocity of said club head in correlation to the dynamic spatial relationship of said club head to said predefined location.

6. ) A golf swing and or impact measurement and analysis system as recited in claim 4 comprising:

a) a means for calculating the dynamically changing characteristic of toe down angle for a substantial portion before, through and after a maximum velocity of said club head in correlation to the dynamic spatial relationship of said club head to said predefined location.

7. ) A golf swing and or impact measurement and analysis system as recited in claim 4 comprising:

a) a means for calculating the dynamically changing characteristic of club face angle for a substantial portion before, through and after a maximum velocity of said club head in correlation to the dynamic spatial relationship of said club head to said predefined location.

8. ) A golf swing and or impact measurement and analysis system as recited in claim 4 comprising:

a) a means for calculating the dynamically changing characteristic of swing radius for a substantial portion before, through and after a maximum velocity of said club head in correlation to the dynamic spatial relationship of said club head to said predefined location.

9. ) A golf swing and or impact measurement and analysis system as recited in claim 4 comprising:

a) a means for calculating the dynamically changing characteristic of club head spatial acceleration for a substantial portion before, through and after a maximum velocity of said club head in correlation to the dynamic spatial relationship of said club head to said predefined location.

10. ) A golf swing and or impact measurement and analysis system as recited in claim 4 comprising:

a) a means for calculating the dynamically changing characteristic of club head radial acceleration for a substantial portion before, through and after a maximum velocity of said club head in correlation to the dynamic spatial relationship of said club head to said predefined location.

11. ) A golf swing and or impact measurement and analysis system as recited in claim 4 comprising:

a) a means for calculating the dynamically changing characteristic of shaft flex lag lead angle for a substantial portion before, through and after a maximum velocity of said club head in correlation to the dynamic spatial relationship of said club head to said predefined location.

12. ) A golf swing and or impact measurement and analysis system as recited in claim 4 comprising:

a) a means for calculating the dynamically changing characteristic of wrist cock angle for a substantial portion before, through and after a maximum velocity of said club head in correlation to the dynamic spatial relationship of said club head to said predefined location.

13. ) A golf swing and or impact measurement and analysis system as recited in claim 4 comprising:

a) a means of measuring ball impact duration on said club face

14. ) A golf swing and or impact measurement and analysis system as recited in claim 4 comprising:

a) a means of measuring ball impact force on said club face

15. ) A golf swing and or impact measurement and analysis system as recited in claim 4 comprising:

a) a means of measuring ball impact location on said club face