SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR EVALUATING A SWING OF ATHLETIC EQUIPMENT

• US 20150251071A1
• Filed: 03/10/2015
• Published: 09/10/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/10/2014
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Kinetek Sports
• Original Assignee: Kinetek Sports
• Inventors: Steusloff, Patrick M., Lupfer, Thomas H.
• Application Number:
  US14/643,295
• Publication Number:
  US 20150251071A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: A43B 3/34 with electrical or electronic arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2102/02 Tennis
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2102/18 Baseball, rounders or similar games
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2220/40 Acceleration
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2220/44 Angular acceleration
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2220/801 Contact switches
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2220/808 Microphones
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 2225/50 Wireless data transmission, e.g. by radio transmitters or telemetry
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 60/16 Caps; Ferrules
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 60/46 Measurement devices associated with golf clubs, bats, rackets or the like for measuring physical parameters relating to sporting activity, e.g. baseball bats with impact indicators or bracelets for measuring the golf swing
• 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: G01L 1/00 Measuring force or stress, in general measuring force due to impact G01L5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01P 15/00 Measuring acceleration; Measuring deceleration; Measuring shock, i.e. sudden change of acceleration

Abstract

A shaft evaluation device and two sole evaluation devices communicate with a host device to collect, analyze, and store data related to a swing of athletic equipment. In a particular system and method, the shaft evaluation device transmits sensor data and notifies the host device that a swing has been detected, whereby the host device obtains sensor data collected by the two sole evaluation devices.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a host device, where the host device comprises a processor, memory, and a radio;

a shaft evaluation device, where the shaft evaluation device comprises an accelerometer, a microcontroller, a radio, and memory;

where the radio of the shaft evaluation device is in wireless communication with the radio of the host device; and

a sole evaluation device, where the sole evaluation device comprises a pressure sensor, a microcontroller, memory, and a radio, where the radio of the sole evaluation device is in wireless communication with the radio of the host device.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the memory of the shaft evaluation device comprises a circular memory buffer.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the memory of the sole evaluation device comprises a circular memory buffer.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the pressure sensor of the sole evaluation device is located in a heel portion of the sole evaluation device.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the sole evaluation device further comprises an additional pressure sensor, where the additional sensor is located in a ball portion of the sole evaluation device.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the shaft evaluation device further comprises a ball-strike sensor.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the shaft evaluation device further comprises programming logic executed by the microcontroller and for interfacing with the ball-strike sensor, accelerometer, radio, and memory, the programming logic configured to:

sample data from the ball strike sensor and accelerometer;

store the sampled data in the memory to create sampled data records; and

determine if a ball strike occurred during a swing.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the programming logic of the shaft evaluation device is further configured to transmit at least a portion of the sampled data records to the host device.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein each sampled data record includes a timestamp.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein less than all of the sampled data records include a timestamp.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the sole evaluation device further comprises programming logic executed by the microcontroller and for interfacing with the pressure sensor, radio, and memory, the programming logic configured to:

sample data from the pressure sensor;

store the sampled data in the memory to create sampled data records; and

transmit at least a portion of the of the sampled data records to the host device.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the shaft evaluation device further comprises programming logic executed by the microcontroller and for interfacing with the radio, the programming logic configured to

request a timestamp from the host device.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the shaft evaluation device further comprises programming logic executed by the microcontroller and for interfacing with the radio, the programming logic configured to

transmit a timestamp to the host device.

14. A method comprising

sampling data from a ball-strike sensor and an accelerometer of a shaft evaluation device, where each sampled data is referred to as a shaft sampled data record;

storing the shaft sampled data records in memory;

sampling data from a plurality of pressure sensors of a sole evaluation device, where each sampled data of a sole evaluation device is referred to as a sole sampled data record;

storing the sole sampled data records in memory;

determining whether a ball impact occurred during a swing; and

transmitting some or all of the shaft sampled data records and some or all of the sole sampled data records to a host device.

15. The method of claim 14, where sampling data from a ball-strike sensor and an accelerometer of a shaft evaluation device occurs at set intervals of time.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein sampling data from a plurality of pressure sensors of a sole evaluation device occurs at set intervals of time.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein the shaft sampled data records are transmitted to the host device only if it was determined that a ball impact occurred during a swing.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein each shaft sampled data record comprises a timestamp.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein a timestamp is transmitted to the host device with the shaft sampled data records.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising the step of calculating, on the host device, a timestamp for a shaft sampled data record using the transmitted timestamp and a set interval of time.

21. The method of claim 14, wherein the step of sampling data from a ball-strike sensor and an accelerometer of a shaft evaluation device further includes sampling data from a gyroscope.

22. A method comprising

sampling data from a ball-strike sensor and an accelerometer of a shaft evaluation device at set intervals of time, where each sampled data is referred to as a shaft sampled data record, where the shaft evaluation device is secured to an article of athletic equipment;

storing the shaft sampled data records in memory;

sampling data from a plurality of pressure sensors of a first sole evaluation device at set intervals of time, where each sampled data of a first sole evaluation device is referred to as a first sole sampled data record;

storing the first sole sampled data records in memory;

sampling data from a plurality of pressure sensors of a second sole evaluation device at set intervals of time, where each sampled data of a second sole evaluation device is referred to as a second sole sampled data record;

storing the second sole sampled data records in memory;

determining whether a ball impact occurred during a swing;

transmitting some or all of the shaft sampled data records to a host device if it was determined that a ball impact occurred during a swing;

transmitting some or all of the first sole sampled data records to the host device upon request by the host device; and

transmitting some or all of the second sole sampled data records to the host device upon request by the host device;

whereby data about the spatial movement of the article by a user can be correlated with the weight balance of the first sole evaluation device and second sole evaluation device.