Towards a Smart Luge that Measures Steering Input of the Rider
Staudinger, Rupert, Wolfgang Kremser, Christoph Thorwartl, Hermann Schwameder (2024): Towards a Smart Luge that Measures Steering Input of the Rider In: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Sport Sciences Research and Technology Support, 206–10. Porto, Portugal: SCITEPRESS - Science and Technology Publications, 2024.
Luge is a high-speed Olympic Winter sliding sport that is timed in milliseconds. The athlete’s steering performance is a crucial factor for success, but there are currently no objective methods to evaluate steering technique and timing. As a work in progress, we present a lab prototype of the ‘smart luge’, a sled retrofitted with six unobtrusive commodity force sensors. The results of a laboratory test with five simulated runs show that the current setup is capable of measuring the athlete’s activity during steering. This work aims to advance data-supported training in the luge sport by enabling the in situ measurement of luge athletes’ activity.