A training system for badminton players utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) that was developed by university researchers and Victor Rackets Industrial Corp is being tested at a Tainan high school, researchers told a news conference at the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taipei yesterday.
Designed to give customized training to athletes, the system combines image recognition, racket motion trajectory, biosignal analysis and a cloud platform for data analysis, they said.
The system is comprised of a badminton racket with a built-in sensor for recording motion, a smart watch, a brainwave sensor and a camera attached to goggles to record biosignals, said Tsai Chia-liang (蔡佳良), director of National Cheng Kung University’s (NCKU) Institute of Physical Education.
Photo: CNA
The sensor in the racket initally weighed 9.5g, but Victor Rackets was able to optimize the design of the racket handle to keep the weight to within 6g, Tsai said.
The system has been tested by badminton players at National Hsin-Feng Senior High School in Tainan, home to badminton teams that have won several national competitions, he said.
The research team created an experimental field at the school equipped with cameras to capture players’ movements, said Wang Jeen-shing (王振興), a professor in NCKU’s department of electrical engineering.
Reading collected signals through machine learning and integrating all the functions to yield precise analyses were the main goals for developing the system, Wang said, adding that the researchers hope the system will be used by professional players.
To protect players’ personal data, each smart racket has an identification code, but Victor Rackets might later include encrypted information protection services for different levels of players, he added.
Hsin-Feng badminton coach Lee Yi-hsun (李宜勳) said the system allows her to better understand her players’ physical condition, and the students have been inspired by the devices to work harder to improve their performance.
Victor Taiwan marketing and sales division deputy director Elvis Ke (柯泓全) presented the high school with 45 smart rackets during the news conference.
The company’s main competitors in developing smart rackets are Chinese brands, but it is confident that it will gain the upper hand, Ke said.
A survey of young Taiwanese showed that only 36.5 percent of men and 19.6 percent of women believe marriage is important, a trend that academics say is key to the nation’s low birthrate. Yang Wen-shan (楊文山), an adjunct research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology, yesterday announced the 12th round of results from a longitudinal survey of attitudes among young Taiwanese toward markers of adulthood. While few of the respondents, who were aged 28 to 32 when surveyed in 2017, found marriage to be important, 95.8 percent believed that being responsible for oneself should take precedence, data showed. Economic independence came in
SHRINKING FEMALE POPULATION: Last year, 107.74 boys were born for every 100 girls in Taiwan, which is a greater gender imbalance than in Japan and South Korea The Ministry of the Interior recorded 9,601 births in January, the first time the nation has produced fewer than 10,000 newborns in a single month, while different indicators showed that Taiwan might also be facing a population with increasingly fewer births, women and marriages. It comes after the ministry reported a record low 165,249 births last year, which was lower than the 173,156 deaths recorded last year. The nation experienced negative population growth for the first time last year, ministry data found. The number of births in January also dropped from a year earlier, when there were 12,510 births. In February, there were
The Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office has listed six people as suspects in a judicial investigation into a fatal train crash on Friday last week. Fifty people were killed and more than 200 were injured when the Taroko Express No. 408 train slammed into a crane truck that had slid onto the tracks near the entrance of Cingshuei Tunnel (清水隧道) in Hualien’s Sioulin Township (秀林). The office also summoned six officials at the Taiwan Railways Administration’s (TRA) Hualien Engineering Section for questioning about alleged illegal business operations and unsafe work conditions by Yi Hsiang Industry Co and Tung Hsin Construction Co, the two
KEEPING FOCUSED: Premier Su Tseng-chang was said to have commended Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung, but said the tragedy takes priority Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) has submitted a verbal resignation in the wake of the Taroko Express No. 408 train crash two days ago, Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said yesterday. In a call, Lin told Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) that he wished to step down, to take responsibility for the deadliest accident involving a Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) train in 40 years. As of press time last night, the Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office had revised the death toll from 51, which had been reported on the previous day, to 50, after DNA testing showed that what had
RSS