Reuben Burch, PhD is the Associate Vice President for Research at the Office of Research and Economic Development at Mississippi State University (MSU). Prior to this, he served as the Associate Director of Athlete Engineering at the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems (CAVS) at MSU. The interdisciplinary team within the Athlete Engineering Research Lab (AERL) are leading the way on wearable technology and human assessment and performance. The group explores athletic ability in a variety of fields and has divided these areas into four distinct Human Athlete Personas: Tactical Athlete; Industrial Athlete; At-Risk Athlete; and Sports Athlete. They help improve the safety, performance, and recovery programs for these Human Athlete Personas. Reuben, who helped create the Athlete Engineering Program at MSU, says “Athlete engineering is academics partnering with athletics to help strength and conditioning coaches and athletic trainers improve their use of technology and data analysis”.
Pitching: AERL conducted a study examining pitching kinematics and kinetics in collaboration with the MSU Softball Team. A custom full-body motion capture was developed and tracked in MotionMonitor while synchronized with Kistler force plates. This data was used by the pitching coach to help optimize form and find measures that best correlated to increased pitching velocity. This study was also featured on MSU’s national commercial in 2022.
AERL joined The MotionMonitor® family in 2016. It has been impressive to see the academic contributions they have made in this time and how many students they have nurtured into leaders that have entered engineering, sport, health care and tactical training roles. The abilities and holistic nature of the team have found a niche way to translate science to the all the people they work with. Reuben says ““The Athlete Engineering Research Lab is proud to have been using the MotionMonitor since 2016 across a variety of experiments, spanning sports biomechanics, wearable and performance technology validation, and health and ergonomics assessments. The capabilities for MotionMonitor xGen to plot multiple data streams in real-time has served as a great resource for Athlete Engineering’s efforts to validate the accuracy and reliability of a variety of wearable and performance technology systems. As human performance technologies continue to progress in novel areas such as markerless and inertial-based motion capture, Athlete Engineering is looking forward to further integrating these systems into future experiments for a streamlined data capture process for validation in cutting-edge research.”
Virtual Reality Postural Sway Study: AERL recently conducted a study examining postural sway while a participant went through a virtual reality-based concussion assessment. Postural sway measures collected from MotionMonitor using optical motion capture and force plates were used as gold standard data to compare to IMU data collected from the VR tool, as well as Athlete Engineering’s custom-developed smart sock wearable.
Using The MotionMonitor®, the team has been able to integrate and synchronously collect from Vicon motion capture cameras, Noraxon EMG, and Kistler Force Plates. This has enabled theUsing The MotionMonitor®, the team has been able to integrate and synchronously collect from Vicon motion capture cameras, Noraxon EMG, and Kistler Force Plates. This has enabled them to test, analyze and validate various sensor and wearable technologies and industry partners’ technologies. Some of the most recent projects include validating novel technologies such as SMART Socks ® for gait analysis, compression shorts for tracking muscle activity, and flexible bar bells for strength training. They have also collaborated with the MSU Softball coach to study pitcher’s kinematics and force output to improve pitching mechanics. Their vital work is helping to provide safer working conditions for industrial workers, push athletes to their best and improve telehealth patient tracking.to test, analyze and validate various sensor and wearable technologies and industry partners’ technologies. Some of the most recent projects include validating novel technologies such as SMART Socks ® for gait analysis, compression shorts for tracking muscle activity, and flexible bar bells for strength training. They have also collaborated with the MSU Softball coach to study pitcher’s kinematics and force output to improve pitching mechanics. Their vital work is helping to provide safer working conditions for industrial workers, push athletes to their best and improve telehealth patient tracking.
Traffic Signaling Study: This study was conducted in collaboration with the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems to investigate gesture recognition for autonomous vehicle sensors (i.e. lidar/radar). The data was collected with motion capture as a “ground-truth” for the movements that occurred. MotionMonitor’s capability to collect large amounts while displaying in real-time served as a great tool for the team in this experiment.
To learn more about what the Athlete Engineering Research Lab is working on please visit their lab website and see a video describing more about what they do:
https://www.cavs.msstate.edu/research/athlete_engineering.php
https://www.weringtrue.msstate.edu/athleteengineering/index.html
See the publications from the lab here:
https://www.cavs.msstate.edu/research/pubs-athlete.php
AERL LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/msuathleteengineering/
