SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR VIRTUAL SPORTS COMPETITIONS AND SPORTS CENTRIC INTERNET COMMUNITIES

Field of the invention

The present invention is related to a system and a method for inter-active data-processing. The system and the method involve sensor acquired measurements describing the status and/or the dynamic of a piece of sports equipment. The addition of specific sensor based measurement devices and/or geographic localisation devices to sports equipment enable the automatic uploading on an internet community server of the data characterizing the sports activity. This data may represent a trajectory of a ski ride, height of a jump, maximum speed and trajectory of a launch, time to move between two physical locations and so on.

Background

US 2006/0136173 Al discloses a system and a method for monitoring athletic performance. The system comprises a global positioning satellite receiver that obtains data relating to a series of time stamped position points. The system also comprises sensors that measure physical data relating to an athlete's performance. Furthermore, the system comprises a means for calibrating the physical data via the global positioning satellite receiver. In this way, it is possible to correct speed or pace data.

Today most individual sports rely on the organisation of physical competitions where the practitioners of a certain sport gather at the same time in a given location and compete with each other. For some sports those competitions are matches and require the simultaneous performance of several, most often two, competitors. Examples of such sports include tennis, squash, athletic running competitions, etc. However, in many- other sports, competitions do not require matches or direct immediate comparisons. For those sports competitions are based on the comparison of some metrics, for example maximum length or height of a jump like in athletics or ski jumps. Another example of such kind of metrics comparison is the best sets of figures or jumps like in most snowboarding, skateboarding, surfing, ice-skating competitions. Also many competitions run as direct comparisons could be organised asynchronousIy by measuring for instance the minimum time to move between a set of points like e.g. athletic races, ski competitions, most cycling competitions.

Taking these observations as a starting point there is a desire to provide people more opportunities to enhance their experience in practising sports.

Summary of the invention

According to a first aspect, the present invention suggests a system for interactive data processing. The system comprises a plurality of sports equipments. Each sports equipment is equipped with at least one sensor such that a set of sensor data related to the sports equipment utilization is captured.

Each sports equipment also comprises a communication device associated with the sports equipment for establishing a communication link with an Internet server. The Internet server is provided with an application that is arranged to relate the data transferred from different sports equipments to one another. To relate the data encompasses also to compare the data.

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention the sensor is capable of capturing at least one type of data selected from the group comprising data which are characteristic for the movement of the sports equipment, physiological data of the user of the sports equipment, data describing the environment and data describing the position of the sports equipment.

Advantageously, the sports equipment includes a clock generating a time signal, and electronic processing means associating the previous data with the time signal.

It has been found to be useful if the sports equipment includes data storage to store the sensor data. The data storage allows the user to selectively transmit the captured sensor data to the Internet server and to temporarily store the data on the device while there is no communication available.

In an advantageous embodiment the sports equipments are provided with an identification means allowing to identify from which sports equipment sensor data are transmitted to the Internet server.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the application is designed to assign data received from different sports equipments to different user accounts. The assignment can be performed automatically.

Advantageously, the application generates output data to drive a display device to visualize the sensor data. The visualization of the sensor data facilitates the assessment of a sports exercise for the user.

According to a second aspect of the invention a method for data processing is proposed. The inventive method comprises the steps of : -capturing sensor data related to a plurality of sports equipments;

-transferring the sensor data to an Internet server, and -relating the sensor data received from different sports equipments to each other.

In this connection the step of relating the data also encompasses to compare the data.

In a development of the invention the data processing can be performed automatically.

A preferred development of the inventive method comprises the steps of generating a time signal, and associating the time signal with the sensor data.

In a development of the invention the method comprises the step of storing the sensor data.

Preferably the method comprises the step of identifying from which sports equipment the sensor data are received. In this case the method advantageously also comprises the step of assigning the sensor data received from different sports equipments to different user accounts.

In a preferred embodiment, the inventive method comprises the step of displaying the sensor data to facilitate the assessment of the sensor data describing a sports exercise.

In this case an advantageous development of the inventive method comprises the step of displaying the sensor data received from different sports equipments at the same location to enable a comparison between different sets of sensor data.

The invention also enables the development of sports centric internet communities where practitioners of a given sport can compare their practices through computer-mediated exchange of the data automatically acquired by their sports equipments.

The sharing of sports related data can be very attractive, not only for young people. Specifically, the invention enables to compare one's practice with the best performers in the world or with friends, to learn from others and their practices^ to improve or simply to share with the community the pleasure of sport experiences.

Through the invention described herein, it will be possible to perform "virtual competitions" for many kinds of different sports. Sportsmen will be able to compare their performances at a given spot even if they perform their activities at different

times. In some kinds of sports, where location is important but not a dominant factor like in many athletics sports, virtual competitions can take place independent of time and location.

The present invention is based on a combination of data acquisition equipments attached to sports equipments, electronic communication systems, and internet servers. The invention enables the creation of new classes of applications such as virtual competitions and other social exploitation of sports related metrics .

Through this set of novel practices, sports practitioners of many different kinds of sport can share and compare their individual performances through measurements acquired by devices fitted in their shoes, clothing or purposed designed bracelets. For illustrative purposes a few examples of the invention are presented in the following:

Skier skiing with ski equipment (skis or shoes) integrating sensors and/or location tracking (such as GPS) devices can compare their time and the trajectories of their runs on a given track with all the other skiers using the same track. This comparison can occur independently of time of the performances and they can share with their social network their best runs .

Skateboarders using boards equipped with movement sensors can share their best jumps and compare their skills with all the other skateboarders participating in a given social network. If the measurements acquired are associated with some location information, virtual

competitions can be organised for a given "halfpipe" or specific set of infrastructure.

Cyclist can participate in the virtual "Tour de France" by comparing their performances with the ones of champions on a given road.

- Athletes throwing weight or javelin can compare their results, and the way they prepare their throw, independently of the location. By adding some indication on the environment conditions such as altitude, pressure of wind speed they can organise meaningful "virtual competitions" .

These are only examples. In all sports activities one can imagine the creation of "virtual competitions" and the development of communities associated with the sharing through the internet of sports related data. In all cases, the invention relies on the novel combination of the acquisition of sports related data through the integration of data acquisition devices in the normal sports practice. The acquired data combines all or part of: location related information associated with time stamps, sensor acquired information characterising the movement of sports equipments or body parts, sensor acquired information characterizing the environment of the activity and physiological data of the user. All data are automatically acquired.

A second important element of the invention is the automatic and secure association of a unique identifier with this data set. In an embodiment of the invention the unique identifier combines all or part of:

A number characterising a sport equipment (such as a bike,

a snowboard, a cart, etc.) or a set of sports equipments (such as a pair of skis, a pair of shoes, a set of several bracelets equipping various body parts of an athlete, etc) .

The time of the measurement. - The location of the measurement.

The third important element of the invention is the transmission of this secured information to an internet server, where a specific application or a generic community application automatically handles the data and enables its sharing between several users .

This summary was provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.

Brief description of the drawings

The invention will be better understood and other particular features and advantages will become apparent on reading the following description appended with drawings. In the drawings similar or identical elements are labelled with the same reference signs. It shows:

Fig. 1 a schematic overview of the system;

Fig. 2 a schematic block diagram of possible implementations when the virtual competition system and sports related community, social networking and entertainment system is an Internet server;

Fig. 3 a schematic block diagram of smart sports equipments;

Fig. 4 a schematic block diagram of the virtual competition and sports social applications; Fig. 5 a flow diagram for the automatic handling of sports related data flow;

Fig. 6 a flow diagram for a process to bind a sport device to a user account; and

Fig. 7 a flow diagram for executing virtual competitions.

Detailed description

For the purposes of promoting an understanding of the principles of the invention, reference will now be made to the embodiments illustrated in the drawings and specific language will be used to describe the same. It will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope is thereby intended. Any alterations and further modifications in the described embodiments, and any further applications of the principles as described herein are contemplated as would normally occur to one skilled in the art.

With reference to the drawings various embodiments will be described in the following description.

Fig. 1 shows a schematic overview of the system. The invention is based on the novel combination of three key components: The first component is sports equipments 100 equipped with some sensors for data acquisition, also briefly referred to as "smart sports equipment" . The properties of smart sports

equipments will be described further below in connection with the description of Fig. 2. The second component is standardised communication protocols. The third component is an Internet server such as those servers, which are used today for communities or "social networking" applications 101, commonly known as blog server or similar technologies.

The invention also leverages existing technologies such as computer systems 102, mobile electronic devices 103, and wireless radio base stations 106. Communication links between smart sports equipments 100 and systems 102, 103 are established e.g. by some wired connection 108. Alternatively, the communication links are established by wireless radio communication 107, which is supported by the devices 102, 103, 106.

The data transmission of the sports equipment 100 can rely on physical connections 108 to computer systems 102 such as laptops or PC devices or mobile equipments 103. The mobile equipments 103 are e.g. mobile phones, PDAs, pager, MP3 , or other entertainment devices or other specifically designed electronic devices. The data transmission can also rely on wireless communications 107 to the same types of devices or directly to wireless base stations 106. Any wireless communication protocol that is known in the art is appropriate for the wireless communication 107 including GSM/UMTS, Wifi, Wimax, Bluetooth, and Zigbee.

The data transmission itself happens in real time as the sports activity is performed or is asynchronous and happens after the

sports activity has been performed. In some implementations, data transmission can be fully automatic and activated as soon as the data transmission detects some appropriate receiving capability. In some other implementations data transmission will be activated by the user who will select the data to be uploaded. The latter is particularly attractive because it provides some control to the user in the sense that he decides which set of data shall be used in the virtual competition. The user may skip exercises, which he deems did not go well.

Protocols used to transport the data and to bring it to the application 101 can include: specific protocols 201, especially in the case of a direct connection to a computer system 102, or generic protocols such as internet protocols for email, "blog" related protocols, SMS/MMS protocols used in the mobile phone, etc as it is shown in Fig. 2.

Several generic classes of implementation of this general system are further depicted in Fig. 2. As shown in Fig. 1 the smart sports equipment 100 can upload the data they acquired to an internet-server by a using a specific protocol, a mail protocol or a web feeds protocol, shown as arrows 201. Examples for web feeds protocols are XML-RPC, RSS or Atom protocols, which are shown in Fig. 2 and as dashed -- dotted arrows 202. Depending on the implementation, those feeds can be constructed either directly on the sports equipment 100 itself for instance when the sports equipments 100 subscribe to a service and directly connect to associated base stations 106. In an alternative embodiment of the invention the feeds are constructed on intermediary computer 102 or mobile device 103 systems. In turn, those intermediary systems 102, 103 can

either construct directly the internet feeds or submit emails to Mail-blog gateways 110 using email protocols such as SMTP, POP3, IMAP, MMS or proprietary protocols. This type of communication links are shown in Fig. 2 as dotted arrows 203.

Fig. 3 details the smart sports equipment 100. Smart sports equipments 100 are generic sports equipments or special purposed designed sport equipments integrating data acquisition device 301, data transmission device 302 and data storage 303. The data acquisition device 301 includes sensors for sensing the specific properties related to the sports equipment 100 as well as a processor for processing the measured data. The data transmission device 302 is an interface for establishing a wired or wireless communication link to a computer system 102 or a mobile device 103 or a base station 106. The data storage

303 is e.g. a flash memory device. However, the data storage may not be included in all embodiments of the present invention. Finally, the sports equipment 100 comprises a device

304 for producing a unique identifier. The unique identifier allows unambiguously identifying one specific smart sports equipment 100 among all other smart sports equipments. The unique identifier is like a fingerprint of every individual smart sports equipment .

The sports equipments 100 themselves can be any existing sports equipment (such as specific sports devices, clothes, or shoes) or specially designed equipments such as bracelets or bands to attach the data acquisition devices 301 and data transmission devices 302 to the sportsmen or to pre-existing sports equipment .

Four generic classes of data acquisition can be implemented in the data acquisition device 301.

(1) In some embodiment of the invention the data acquisition device 301 can simply acquire a static location information characterizing the location. In other cases the data acquisition devices 301 track the location of the sports equipment 100 over time. The data characterizing a location can be geographical coordinates such as those produced by GPS systems. But also any other information such as a building or room for indoor locations, a unique identifier of a specific sports infrastructure e.g. a ski track, a skateboard tunnel, a swimming pool or a climbing wall or track number are other examples for a this type of location information.

The tracking of location over time can be ensured through GPS or Galileo satellite positioning systems when this information is available and relevant. Also any other location tracking system such as indoor tracking systems producing relevant data is appropriate.

(2) In some other implementations, the data acquisition device 301 can integrate measurements characterizing the performance such as 3D movement tracking and 3D orientation of the device, instantaneous acceleration, height above ground, maximum speed, and the like. The devices required to produce this kind of data are for instance speed meters, altimeters, GPS sensors, accelerometers, gyroscopes , etc. Numerous sensors are commercially available to produce those measurements.

(3) In other implementations, the data acquisition devices 301 can also integrate detailed measurements regarding the environment of the sports equipment 100 such as temperature, pressure, or humidity. The required sensors are commercially available thermometers, pressure gauges, and hygrometers.

(4) Finally, in other implementation the data acquisition devices 301 also integrate specific physiological data of the user such as his heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, etc. Again numerous components are commercially available to produce such data.

Any combination of the four mentioned classes of data acquisition (1), (2), (3) or (4) can be found in a single device 301 or in a plurality of coordinated devices 301 depending on the actual sports and on design choices .

In most cases, the data acquired by the data acquisition devices 301 is temporarily stored in the data storage 303.

The data acquired is then stamped with a unique identifier produced by the device 304. This unique identifier can be computed using the unique identifier of the data acquisition device 301 plus eventually any combination of two additional information :

(1) A time stamp characterising the time and date of the performance. For this purpose the data acquisition unit of

301 is provided with a clock producing time and date information data.

(2) Location information, which can be a GPS style of information or any other location information uniquely characterising a sport performance.

The unique identifier 304 characterizing the sports data acquisition device 301 itself can be obtained directly. Alternatively, the unique identifier can be obtained by a mathematical combination of several numbers present in the smart sports equipment. In some cases, when the data is produced by a single data acquisition device 301 this will be the unique identifier of this device. In other implementations, several devices might collaborate to produce the data e.g. two sensor devices in the skis, a physiological sensor on the body of the skier, and a GPS receiver. In this case the electronic system aggregating the data will also be responsible for computing this unique identifier and associating it with the data.

The secured association of the data acquired and of this unique identifier serves three main purposes:

Firstly, the unique identifier secures the data and guarantees that the data transmitted is really sports related information acquired by a precise electronic system. This is important for the security of the overall system eliminating the spamming of irrelevant data flows. It also ensures that the data really represent a sports performance and that the data has not been tampered with. This is essential for the setup of fair virtual competitions.

Secondly, the unique identifier 304 can be used by a sports application 400 (Fig. 4) to automatically sort received information and associate flows received with a given user, a given equipment, a given location, etc. It is therefore also the basis of the automatic setup of virtual competitions and the above-mentioned social networking sports based applications.

Thirdly, the unique identifier 304 uniquely describes the devices involved in the data acquisition and therefore enables the automatic identification, calibration and/or sorting of the data received by the application 400.

Once the data is transmitted to the internet server 101 an application 400 provided on the Internet server 101 enables the user to access this data, share it with other users, or participate in virtual competitions. Fig. 4 represents a diagrammatic view of the application 400. The five main parts I of this application are the automatic acquisition of data 401, a user login 402, the association of individual smart sports equipments with user accounts 403, generic data presentation tools 404, and the virtual competition application 406. The generic data presentation tools 404 include graphical tools to present the data in a user- friendly way, statistical tools to summarize and compare performances, virtual reality and simulation tools, computer gaming applications to name just a few examples .

Fig. 5 represents a flow diagram of the process associated with automatic acquisition of data 401. An XML data stream is

received (step 501) by internet application 400. From the received data stream a unique identifier is extracted (step 502) . A first level of security of the system is ensured by checking that the identifier of the data is a correctly formed unique identifier (step 503), which is recognised by the application 401. If the unique identifier is not correctly formed, the data is rejected (step 504) .

A second level of security is ensured by checking that the unique identifier of the sports equipment 100 is known by the software application 401. In the next step (step 506) the device number of the sports equipment 100 is extracted from the received data stream. Then the application 401 verifies if corresponds to a pre-registered device number (step 507) . If this is not the case the data is rejected (step 508) . To ensure that the device number is known by the application 400 the user had to register the device, i.e. the user had to submit the device number beforehand to the Internet server 101. In an alternative embodiment the device number is submitted automatically as soon as the sports equipment 100 becomes operative for the first time.

Only after the first checks have been passed successfully the sensor data are extracted from the data stream (step 509) . A third level of security is ensured by checking that the data stored in the XML data stream is correctly encoded using a key associated with the unique identifier (step 511) . This encoding might rely on a variety of well-known cryptographic algorithms. If the data is not correctly encoded it is rejected (step 512) .

If all automatic checks are successful, the storage area associated with a user account is identified (step 513) . The user account corresponds to the unique identifier. The uploaded data will automatically be stored in an assigned storage area (step 514) and handled to an application managing the virtual competitions or ensuring the various sports related entertainment, presentation and sharing of data (step 516) .

In most cases, the storage of data and the associated application will be associated with a registered user of the sports device. In some other cases, for instance when the acquisition system and the application 400 itself is associated with a specific sports infrastructure the uploaded data can be associated with this infrastructure and an associated set of authorised user on the application 400. Once a user has opened an account on the application 400 through normal well-known practices, he will be able to associate device numbers with this account. The user will identify on the application 400 through process 402 reflecting well-known practices such as combining a user identification name and a pass code. Then the user will be able to associate sports devices to this account through the process 403 illustrated in Fig. 6. Each time the user purchases a sports equipment suitable for utilisation in the invention described here, he will be provided with two numbers representing two parts of a device identification. One number could be printed on the equipment itself and the other one would be secured within for instance the guarantee of the equipment. By entering those two numbers (step 602, 603), the process 601 calculates a unique identifier of the device ID (step 604 if the unique identifier is confirmed to be correct the process 601 associates the device with a user account (step

607) . If any kind of problem with the unique identifier is detected the data is rejected (step 608) . Associated processes will exist to cancel this association, for instance in case the user sells the equipment.

Fig. 7 presents a flow diagram of the process associated with automatic identification of appropriate virtual competitions 701. The unique identifier associated with the data enables the identification of the class of sports devices and therefore of the sports activity practiced (step 702) and, when appropriate, of the location where the performance was registered (steps 703, 704). Using those two data items, the application 701 will be able, through for instance the process presented in Fig. 6, to identify automatically the appropriate "virtual competition" (step 706) . Then it is checked whether an active competition is already going on (step 707) . If the user data cannot be attributed with an existing competition, the new competition is created and a user data are included into this new competition (step 708) . If the user data can be attributed to an active competition, the data is added to the selected competition (step 709) . The virtual competition can then be presented through numerous means ranging from simple ranked performances to complex matching and comparison of trajectories.

The present invention automatically enables the creation of virtual sports competitions from the data automatically acquired by sports practitioners when practicing their normal sports. The invention is based on electronic systems to automatically acquire data characterising the sporting activity. The data is subsequently secured and a data flow is uniquely associated with a given type of sports equipments. In

most cases also the location where the performance has been performed is stored. The essential components of the invention are computer-based systems such as an internet server, enabling to maintain user association with specific devices, automatic acquisition and handling of data acquired by sports devices and the automatic management of virtual competitions.