ESPRIT project explained

ESPRIT, or the Elite Sport Performance Research in Training[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] is a UK EPSRC and UK Sport funded research project aiming to develop pervasive sensing technologies for better the understanding of the physiology and biomechanics of athletes in training, and apply the technologies to enhance the well being and healthcare of general public.

Key research themes

Proof of concept projects

Showcase/secondment projects

Sports exemplars

A number of sports exemplars have been selected in the ESPRIT Programme to demonstrate and validate the application of pervasive sensing technology in elite sport performance monitoring

ESPRIT Sports Exemplars!Sports!Short Description
RowingThe physiology and biomechanics of rowers and rowing techniques have been widely studied, but most of the studies were conducted in laboratory settings, as measuring equipment is often laborary based and can not be used on the boat. To enable real-time monitoring of athletes' physiology and capturing biomechanical indices, a number of pervasive sensing devices have been developed under the ESPRIT programme.
Swimming[11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] To understand the biomechanics of a swim is often difficult, as tradition measuring tools cannot be used under water. In most cases, the biomechanic indices can only be captured by swimmers simulating the swimming movements in dry land. Under the ESPRIT programme, a number of wireless sensing technologies have been developed aiming to provide a real-time unobtrusive monitoring system for elite swimmers.
Cycling[27] To facilitate the training of cyclist, a cycling ergometer is developed in the ESPRIT programme. Despite integrated with sensors to capture the force profile of the cyclist, the new ergometer can emulate different cycling conditions.
Rugby[28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34]
Sprinting[35]
Wheelchair basketball/rugby[36]
Basketball[37]
Weightlifting[38] [39] [40] [41]

Healthcare exemplars

One of the main objectives of the ESPRIT project is to extend the developed sensing technology for wellbeing and healthcare applications. To demonstrate the application of the technology, a number of healthcare exemplars have been selected.

Key Partners

Imperial College LondonLoughborough University
Queen Mary, University of LondonUK Sport
British Olympic AssociationParalympics GB
Lawn Tennis AssociationEngland Rugby
England CricketEngland Football
AdidasAssociation of British Healthcare Industries
BAE SystemsBritish Telecom
DSTL - Defence Science and Technology LaboratoryHelp the Aged
IMEC Holst CentreLGC - Laboratory of the Government Chemist
Live-WorkNPL - National Physical Laboratory

See also

Notes and References

  1. Britain leading London 2012 technology race, The Times newspaper, 08 September 2008
  2. Web site: Details of Grant . https://web.archive.org/web/20120117190443/http://gow.epsrc.ac.uk/ViewGrant.aspx?GrantRef=EP/H009744/1 . 2012-01-17.
  3. Web site: New technology will help improve athletes' performance - EPSRC . 2011-11-09 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120402225926/http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2009/Pages/improveathletesperf.aspx . 2012-04-02 . dead.
  4. Web site: Science, Medicine & Engineering in British Sport . 2011-11-09 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120402151402/http://www.raeng.org.uk/events/pdf/Scott_Drawer.pdf . 2012-04-02 . dead.
  5. Web site: UK Sport - ESPRIT Workshops: Could you contribute to world class success? . www.uksport.gov.uk . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20100925053839/http://www.uksport.gov.uk/news/esprit-workshops-could-you-contribute-to-world-class-success-220910 . 2010-09-25.
  6. Sensors offer chance to give Britain Olympic edge,The Times newspaper, on 30 October 2009
  7. Web site: Latest news from Loughborough University.
  8. Web site: ESPRIT project to improve performance of British athletes on world stage. 28 October 2009.
  9. Web site: Scientists Expect ESPRIT Project Will Make Innovative Leaps in Biosensor Design. 27 October 2009.
  10. Web site: Alexander I J Forrester - Academic Page . www.soton.ac.uk.
  11. Julien Pansiot, Benny Lo and Guang-Zhong Yang, "Swimming Stroke Kinematic Analysis with BSN", presented at the 2010 International Conference on Body Sensor Networks (BSN 2010), Singapore, June 2010.
  12. West DJ, Owen NJ, Cunningham DJ, Cook CJ, Kilduff LP. Strength and Power Predictors of Swimming Starts in International Sprint Swimmers. J Strength Cond Res. 2010 Jul 20.
  13. Slawson, S.E., Conway, P.P., Cossor, J., Chakravorti, N., Le-Sage, T., West, A.A. ‘The Effect of Start Block Configuration and Swimmer Kinematics on Starting Performance in Elite Swimmers using the Omega OSB11 Block’, at Asia Pacific Congress on Sports Technology (APCST), August 2011, Melbourne, Australia
  14. Webster, J.M., West, A.A., Conway, P.P., Caine, M.P., ‘Development of a Pressure Sensor for Swimming Turns’, accepted for presentation at Asia Pacific Congress on Sports Technology (APCST), August 2011, Melbourne, Australia
  15. Slawson, S.E., Conway, P.P., Justham, L.M., Le-Sage, T., West, A.A. ‘Characterising the Swimming Tumble Turn using Acceleration Data’, under revision for Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology (IMechE Part P)
  16. Mullane, S.M., Chakravorti, N., Conway, P.P., West, A.A., ‘Design and Implementation of a User-Centric Swimming Performance Monitoring Tool’, Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology (IMechE Part P), accepted after revision on 8 March 2011
  17. Le-Sage, T., Bindel, A., Conway, P.P., Justham, L.M., Slawson, S.E., West, A.A., ‘Kalman Filter Design for the Application to an INS Analysing Swimmer Performance’, 18th European Signal Processing Conference. EURASIP 2010. 2010. . P1723-1727
  18. Le-Sage, T., Bindel, A., Conway, P.P., Justham, L.M., Slawson, S.E., West, A.A., ‘Embedded Programming and Real-Time Signal Processing of Swimming Strokes’, Sports Engineering Journal, accepted for publication.
  19. Le-Sage, T., Bindel, A., Conway, P.P., Justham, L.M., Slawson, S.E., Webster, J.M.F., West, A.A., ‘A Multi-Sensor System for Monitoring the Performance of Elite Swimmers’, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, accepted for publication.
  20. Cossor, J., Slawson, S.E., Shillabeer, B., Conway, P.P., West, A.A., ‘Are Land Tests a Good Predictor of Swim Start Performance’, International Society of Biomechanics in Sports. Porto 2011
  21. Slawson, S.E., Conway, P.P., Justham, L.M. and West, A.A., The development of an inexpensive passive marker system for the analysis of starts and turns in swimming, Procedia Engineering: The Engineering of Sport 8 - Engineering Emotion, 2(2), June 2010, PP 1877–7058,,
  22. Le Sage, T., Bindel, A., Conway, P.P., Justham, L.M., Slawson, S.E. and West, A.A., Development of a real time system for monitoring of swimming performance, Procedia Engineering: The Engineering of Sport 8 - Engineering Emotion, 2(2), June 2010, pp 2707–2712,,
  23. Mullane, S.L., Justham, L.M., West, A.A. and Conway, P.P., Design of an end-user centric information interface from data-rich performance analysis tools in elite swimming, Procedia Engineering: The Engineering of Sport 8 - Engineering Emotion, 2(2), June 2010, pp 2713–2719,,
  24. Slawson, S.E., Conway, P.P., Justham, L.M., Le Sage, T. and West, A.A., Dynamic signature for tumble turn performance in swimming, Procedia Engineering: The Engineering of Sport 8 - Engineering Emotion, 2(2), June 2010, pp 3391–3396,,
  25. T Le Sage, P Conway, L Justham, S Slawson, A Bindel, A West, A Component Based Integrated System for Signal Processing of Swimming Performance. International Conference on signal processing and multimedia applications, SIGMAP 2010, July 26–28 Athens, Greece
  26. Cossor, J.M., Slawson, S.E., Justham, L.M., Conway, P.P., West, A.A, The Development of a Component Based Approach for Swim Start Analysis 11th Intl Symposium on Biomechanics and Medicine in Swimming, Oslo, June 2010,
  27. Webster, J.M., West, A.A., Conway, P.P., Caine, M.P., ‘Development of an Automated Cycle Ergometer’, accepted for presentation at Asia Pacific Congress on Sports Technology (APCST), August 2011, Melbourne, Australia
  28. Crewther, B.T., McGuigan, M & Gill, N (2011). The ratio and allometric scaling of speed, power and strength in elite male rugby union players. J Strength Cond Res.
  29. Crewther, B.T., Cook, C.J., Lowe, T.E, Weatherby, R.P & Gill, N (2011). The effects of short cycle sprints on power, strength and salivary hormones in elite rugby players. J Strength Cond Res. 25 (1), 32-39.
  30. Bevan HR, Cunningham DJ, Tooley EP, Owen NJ, Cook CJ, Kilduff LP. Influence of postactivation potentiation on sprinting performance in professional rugby players. J Strength Cond Res. 2010 Mar ; 24(3): 701-5.
  31. Crewther, B.T., McGuigan, M & Gill, N. The ratio and allometric scaling of speed, power and strength in elite male rugby union players. J Strength and Conditioning Research.
  32. Crewther BT, Cook CJ, Lowe TE, Weatherby RP, Gill N. The Effects of Short-Cycle Sprints on Power, Strength, and Salivary Hormones in Elite Rugby Players. J Strength Cond Res. 2010 Jan 21.
  33. Bevan HR, Bunce PJ, Owen NJ, Bennett MA, Cook CJ, Cunningham DJ, Newton RU, Kilduff LP. Optimal loading for the development of peak power output in professional rugby players. J Strength Cond Res. 2010 Jan ; 24(1): 43-7.
  34. Kilduff LM, Manning JP and Cook CJ. Digit Ratio (2D:4D) and Performance in Elite Rugby Players. Journal of Sports Sciences.
  35. Blair T Crewther, Christian J Cook, Chris M Gaviglio, Liam P Kilduff & Scott Drawer. Baseline strength can influence the ability of salivary free testosterone to predict squat and sprinting performance. J Strength Cond Res. Accepted.
  36. J. Pansiot, Z. Zhang, B. Lo and G.Z. Yang, "WISDOM: wheelchair inertial sensors for displacement and orientation monitoring", IOP Journal on Measurement Science and Technology, 22 (10) 105801, Oct 2011.
  37. Nunes, J.A., Crewther, B.T., Ugrinowitsch, C., Tricoli, V., Viveiros, L., de Rose Jr, D & Aoki, M.S. The effect of resistance training periodization on performance and salivary hormone and immune markers in elite female basketball athletes. J Sports Med Phys Fit.
  38. Crewther, B.T., Heke, T., Keogh, J (2011). The effects of training and competition on the salivary cortisol concentrations of Olympic weightlifters. J Strength Cond Res. 25 (1), 10-15.
  39. Crewther, B.T & Cook, C (2010). Relationships between salivary testosterone and cortisol concentrations and resistance training performance in Olympic weightlifters. Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, 50, 166-173.
  40. Crewther, B.T & Cook, C (2010). Measuring the salivary testosterone and cortisol concentrations of weightlifters using an enzyme-immunoassay kit. International Journal of Sports Medicine. 31, 486-489.
  41. Crewther, B.T., Heke, T & Keogh, J.W.L. The effects of training and competition on the salivary cortisol concentrations of weightlifters. International Conference of Sport Science and Sports Medicine, August 2010.
  42. Marie Tolkiehn, Louis Atallah, Benny Lo and Guang-Zhong Yang, "Direction Sensitive Fall Detection Using a Triaxial Accelerometer and Barometric Pressure Sensor", To be appeared in EMBC'11, Boston, USA.
  43. Rachel C. King, Louis Atallah, Charence Wong, Frank Miskelly and Guang-Zhong Yang, "Elderly Risk Assessment of Falls with BSN", presented at the 2010 International Conference on Body Sensor Networks (BSN 2010), Singapore, June 2010.
  44. O. Aziz, L. Atallah, B. Lo, E. Gray, T. Athanasiou, A. Darzi and G-Z. Yang., "Ear-worn Body Sensor Network Device: An Objective Tool for Functional Post-operative Home Recovery Monitoring", To appear in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
  45. L. Atallah, G.J. Jones, R. Ali, J. Leong, B. Lo and G-Z. Yang., "Observing Recovery from Knee-Replacement Surgery by using Wearable Sensors", in Proceedings of the BSN 2011 in Dallas, Texas.
  46. L. Atallah, D. Shrikrishna, B.Lo, T. Parker, J. Patterson, JL Kelly, MI Polkey, GZ Yang and N. Hopkinson, "Comparison of a novel ear worn sensor (e-AR) with an armband sensor for physical activity monitoring in COPD", In Proceedings of the ERS Annual Congress, Barcelona, Spain, Sept. 18-22, 2010
  47. L. Atallah, J-F. Zhang, B.Lo, D. Shrikrishna, J.L. Kelly, A. Jackson, M.I. Polkey, G-Z. Yang, N.S. Hopkinson, "Validation of an Ear Worn Sensor for Activity Monitoring In COPD", In Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society (ATS2010) International Conference, pp. 181, 2010
  48. M. Bennebroek, L. Atallah, B. Lo, G-Z. Yang, "Remote Elderly Care Monitoring through Wireless Accessible Sensor Populations (WASP) - project overview presentation", EWSN2010, February 19, 2010.

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