Little Starfish: Digital Swimming Assistance

Keywords: Embedded System, Gadget, Activity Monitoring, Acceleration Sensor, Preassure Sensor, Energy Efficiency, Goal Achievment, Kids and Teenagers, Activity Recognition

Motivation: Swimming is an olympic discipline with a long tradition. Because of its low-impact, swimming is excellent means for general fitness: it is easy to learn, easy to practice, very good for the cardiovascular system, and particularly suited for those who suffer from obesity. In spite of these advantages, it is quite a surprise that the number of non-swimmers is steadily increasing. Not only does this prevent mass sports from exploiting its full potential, but also does this lead to an increasing number of drowned people. In order to break this doom loop, the starfish project aims to provide a convincing motivational means, particularly for the very young kids. Therefore, the little starfish must be inexpensive and mega cool.

Goals: The main goal of this project is to develop the ’Little Starfish’ as a small and energy-efficient gadget that has the following properties:
(1) monitoring and identifying complex swimm strokes,
(2) providing a communication means that signals the goal achievment easily visible to everyone, and
(3) functional and cool design, such that the little starfish can be worn in the water and attached to a bathing suite and/or cap.

Approaches: This project explores a combination of the following approaches:
(1) combination of low-energy consuming components,
(2) minimizing the number of (SD) memory accesses,
(3) extensive usage of the CPU’s sleeping mode, and
(4) precise physical activity recognition.

Results: The ’Little Starfish’ has been designed and implemented as a proof-of-concept. This very first prototype has the following properties:
(1) it can operate one week without being recharged,
(2) it is a small circuit with 4cm x 3cm in size,
(3) the software can distinguish between different swimming styles, and
(4) the software can count the number of lanes as well as dives.

Research Team: Marian Lüder, Matthias Hinkfoth, Dipl.-Ing. Gerald Bieber, and Ralf Salomon

Contact: Marian Lüder

Selected Publications:

• Bieber, G., Herzig, C., Lüder, M., Salomon, R. Schwimmassistenz durch Erkennung der körperlichen Aktivität im Wasser. In 4. Deutscher AAL Kongress Ambient Assisted Living, VDE Verlag, Berlin, 2011 2011.
• Bieber G., Sablowski C., Luthardt A., Lüder M., Salomon R., Urban B. Erkennung der körperlichen Aktivität beim Schwimmen mittels Beschleunigungssensoren. In Kongress der Multimediatechnik, Wismar, Germany 2010.

Partners: