pSensor - Enhancing Sports Science

A software solution to manage health and athletic performance by aggregation, analysis and mining of sensor data from low cost, commercially available sensors (accelerometers, GPS location devices, heart and respiration rate sensors, blood pressure monitors etc.).  The p-Sensor Solution leverages novel research in the School of Computing in DCU to query both stored and streaming data, enabling much more sophisticated analysis than is available today.  The technology is targeted at sports teams and organizations, health sensor companies and health club chains.  It has application in other areas where performance measurement and analysis is key

What is it?                                                                                                                                                              We have developed a novel software solution called pSensor (Personal Sensor) targeted at managing athletes and sports teams but has potential application in other fields whereperformance measurement and analysis is key.

What problem does it solve?
Today there are large number of sensors on the market - heart rate monitors, gps devices, accelerometers, respiration sensors, blood pressure monitors, sweat sensors and many more.  While these sensors are becoming cheaper and more more ubiquitous, the ultimate benefit to the end user is fairly limited.  They do little more than measure and record one parameter.  The analysis of the data is very rudimentary and it is virtually impossible to correlate data from different sensors.  Most systems on the market today are either paper based or in a spreasheet making interpretation of results almost impossible.  As a simle illustration,  you can measure a players heart rate during a game but what does it tell you?    Statistics that tell you how far a player has run during a game is pretty meaningless from a coaching or performance enhancement perspective.

How does it work?                                                                                                                                          Simply stated, the p-Sensor software allows data from multiple sensors to be captured and then through the expertise within the DCU research group, coaches can get access to really helpful information and ask more meaningful questions.  As an example coaches can now ask questions like:  how many sprints did a player perform during a game, at what velocity, how did the velocity change and were there recovery periods during the sprints?  How much time did each player spend within 90% of his or her maximal heart rate?  Answers to questions like these would be either impossible or take a very long time using existing technologies.  For p-Sensor, these questions can be answered instantaneously.  The system can be easily modified to accommodate any type of new query.  In addition, where wireless sensors are used, a lot of analysis can happen "on the fly" giving a huge advantage to coaches and athletes.

Next Steps?                                                                                                                                                         We are interested in engaging companies, entrepreneurs or investors with an interest in taking this technology to market.

Link for more information: http://www.dcu.ie/invent/pdf/PersonalSensors_Research.pdf

Paddy O’Boyle                                                                                                                                                 Invent DCU                                                                                                                                                    Dublin, Ireland

Tel.:               +353-(0)1-700 7003

Mobile:           +353-(0) 87 756 6700

Fax:               +353-(0)1-700 5506

Email:             paddy.oboyle@dcu.ie