The P@Rformer, The only golf swing analyzer that tells you what's wrong with your timing and Kinematic sequence and how to correct them

Golfer! Have you ever dreamed knowing what's happening during your Golf Swing, how do your body parts move, whether or not your timing is right? And, more importantly why your Golf Swing is not as efficient as it could be?

Here comes the system that will provide you with the answers, namely the P@Rformer^® .

This patented System is looking for a business partner to mass produce and market it. If you have the capacity of developing, manufacturing and distributing electronics or golf training aids, please Contact me.

THEORY

In Golf, Rotations movements are what provides energy to the club and then to the ball to fly towards the target. If you Master Rotations, you Master your Game. And, because these Rotations need to happen in a certain manner, one of the most important success factors for an effective golf swing is TIMING, that is, proper body segments‘ (hips, shoulders, arm and hand) Rotations Chronology. Efficient downswing start's Rotation Chronology is: hips, shoulders, arm and hand.

Moreover, during the downswing, the segments rotational‘s speeds increase and decrease after having reached peaks that have the same chronology than the downswing start: hips, shoulders, arm and hand.

Note: In the following text, we will consider that (as far as rotational speeds are concerned): Hips and Pelvis are equivalent, Shoulders and Thorax (Upper Torso) are equivalent and Club, Hand, Glove Sensor are equivalent.

Whatever their style, all Professional golfers' swings have something in common: The backswing/downswing transition sequence and speed peaks are in the same order.

This has been demonstrated by Phil Cheetham

The following curves represents segments rotational speeds versus time of a "perfect" swing.

T1,T2,T3 and T4 represent the times when each body segment reverses rotation direction to start the downswing (transition).
S1,S2,S3 and S4 represent the times when each body segment reaches its maximum speed (peak)

There was a need to develop a light weight easy to use and affordable system that measures these four rotational speeds and then automatically analyzes their variations versus time to determine whether or not transitions and speed peaks are in the proper sequences.
This is exactly what P@Rformersup>® does

SYSTEM'S DESCRIPTION

This system measures body segments’ rotational speeds using miniaturized gyroscopes (MEMS, Micro-Electro-Mechanical System).

From these measures we build the above curves and the system automatically performs the analysis to check if the optimum conditions are met.

Current System displays this information either as the above graph or in a more intuitive manner as follows:

Good Swing	Bad Swing

The values (in milliseconds) indicate when every segment reverses its rotation (column: Downswing Chronology) or,
when every segment reaches its maximum speed (column: Rotational Speed Peak). Time reference=hips rotation

The system is made of two units:

1) Data Acquisition and Transmission Unit (Electronic Unit), fitted on the golfer
2) Processing and Display Unit (PC, Tablet or Smart Phone), remote, in front of the golfer

Measures are collected by a microprocessor card within the Electronic Unit and are transmitted to an Android based device through Bluetooth Low Energy.

Data Acquisition & Transmission Unit:

This electronic unit has the size of a small cigarette pack and contains:
a) A microprocessor including a Bluetooth Low Energy transmitter,the power supply, battery charging module, the hips sensor, LED diodes (Charge monitoring and system monitoring), ON/OFF switch.
b) A Lipo battery.
The other three sensors (shoulders, arm and hand ) are deasy-chained to the Electronic Unit thanks to a small cable.
Sensors are highly integrated MEMS 3axis IMU (accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer)
The sensors are held by lightweight braces and belts, the hand sensor is Velcroed into the glove

Processing and display unit:

The data acquisition and display unit could be interfaced to any terminal with Bluetooth Low Energy capacities. This Unit receives and analyzes the data and displays the results either in a graphical manner (curves) or in synthetic tables.
For the time being, only an Android version has been developed. Android tablets with 7" screen minimum are best suited for legibility, but smartphone could also be used.
The Apple iOS version will also be developed later.

Features:

- The system is autonomous it does not require any golfer’s intervention between records
- The system filters out movements that are not real swings
- Swing qualities (downswing sequence and speed peaks) are extracted and displayed
- Swing duration is computed, Top swing time and Impact time automatically extracted
- Swing plane changes are indicated
- Hips and Shoulder angles are displayed
- Graphs and zoom of downswing transition are available
- Swings can be recorded (Tagged by player’s name and date & time)
- Swing quality is coded into the file’s name
- Replay of recorded swings on the Android tablet
- Records can be replayed using Excel^tm (provides more details, all sensors axis are available)
- Multilingual: French/English/Spanish, other languages can be added
- Keeps preferences (player’s name and language)
- Records can be replayed and synchronized with high-speed video using Excel^tm
- Left or right handed
- No alignment required
- Can be used for other sports than Golf (Base Ball)

Advantages over existing products:

- Less expensive (5 to 10 times)
- Measure four main segments, not only one single segment (hand or Club) like many products do on the market
- Lighter weight
- Only measures meaningful parameters
- Results display is very intuitive
- Capability to do additional data analysis using Excel^tm
- High-speed video synchronization option (Excel^tm)
- Operates on any kind of Android tablet or smart-phone

Main Characteristics:

- Gyroscopes’ Dynamic: +/- 2000 deg per second per axis (3 axis per sensor)
- Sampling rate: 200 Hz
- Bluetooth Low Energy 1
- Power supply: USB-C rechargeable Lipo
- Packaged Sensor Size: 1.5 cm x 1.1 cm x 0.64 cm
- Weight: Electronic Unit 82 gr., Cable & 3 sensors 10 gr.( each sensor weight less than 2gr.).

Installation:

- Easy to install, light weight, not intrusive.
- One adjustable belt for Electronic Unit attachment
- One shoulder strap for shoulder/thorax sensor
- One arm band strap for arm sensor
- The glove is used to attach hand sensor

Screen Shots:

Home Screen	Archived Files Selection

Example of a Good Swing Graph	Example of a Good Swing Analyzis

Example of a Bad Swing Graph	Example of a Bad Swing Analyzis

Although the system automatically performs the speeds' analysis, the curves can further be visually analyzed by checking the shapes (smoothness) of the curves between the orange vertical line (start of downswing) and the green vertical line (ball impact time). See the difference between the "Good" and the "Bad" examples.
In the "Bad" plot, we can also see the "Hand" curve separating from the others three at the beginning of the downswing , this is a sign of "Casting".

Other plots are available:

- Backswing/Downswing transition zoom
- Hand graph showing all three axes of the hand sensor, this provide a very valuable information about the wrist release time)
- Hips and Shoulders angles (on the main graph)

DEVELOPMENT STATUS
A small batch of production units have been built and thousands of records have been performed with player of different handicap.
Current design is very stable and could be mass produced as is, but Electromagnetic Compatibility testing (EMI, EMC) has not yet been performed

Schematics, drawings, sources codes and instructions are available.
Training methods and drills still need to be further developed.

Intellectual Property
Different Patents have been filled:
- French Patent N°: 1350144 published (BOPI) November 4^th, 2016

GROWTH POTENTIAL

As design today, this system only uses gyroscope data from the MEMS IMU in order to keep cost low whilst recording needed parameters
Processing the data from accelerometers and magnetometers included in the IMU, all angles, orientations and position of all sensors could be obtained

This system could be easily used in conjunction with high speed video recording. Video frames can be synchronized with Swing Timing Master recordings using a dedicated procedure.

VIDEO:

Example of recording synchronized with high speed video

Note: loading could be lengthy.... (Select High Definition on Youtube)

Furthermore, when recorded files are replayed using Excel^tm, more detailed information is available because all three axes per sensor are accessible.

POTENTIAL MARKET

Golf Players quantity:

Worldwide: 64 millions
USA: 26 millions
Japan:17 millions
Europe:7 millions
UK: 3 millions
France: 0.6 millions (I live in France...)

This system can be used by both, recreational and professionals golfers.: Recreational or beginners will understand how to move body segments and professionals will improve their game.

COMPETITION

Since the development of MEMS technology, the market as seen a lot of products being proposed. But performances and real interests varied a lot.

Some are very basic:

These are, either shaft mounted or glove mounted units (MEMS: Gyroscope, Accelerometer, magnetometer) that only measure one segment and provide nice graphics about Club path but don't tell you what went wrong with the others segments that caused the Club movement.

Example of devices: 3Bay GSA, Skypro, Noitom MySwing, Swing Byte, SwingTip, GolfSense, etc, etc.

Costs range from 129$ to 249$

Others are more sophisticated:

AMM Walk About 6D Golf (non MEMS based) needs a tripod mounted antenna. costs around 8 900$

AMM Sensor 9DOF (MEMS: Gyroscope, Accelerometer, magnetometer). One sensor is needed per segment. Each sensor costs around 1250$, hence to get four segments data, total cost is 5000$

K-Vest: 9DOF (MEMS: Gyroscope, Accelerometer, magnetometer). Three sensors (for three segments) system costs around 3500$

The Swing Timing Master, offers the best of the two above worlds, although it is simple (only Gyroscopes) its provide the only valuable piece of information that is needed, that is TIMING.

In addition the shape of the curves provide a very good indication of the overall quality of the swing

Target price is around 650$

ABOUT THE DESIGNER

With more than 38 years in the aerospace industry, I'm a physicist by education and I'm also holding a Master degree in Micro-electronics.

My main challenge is to try to make things simple and affordable, this project is one of them, to provide everyone with a simple mean to show how his golf swing is and, more importantly, how to improve it.

You are the viewer number: 2059406

P@Rformer^®
Golf Swing Automatic Analyzer

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P@Rformer® Golf Swing Automatic Analyzer

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P@Rformer^®
Golf Swing Automatic Analyzer