Actual running performance monitoring for personal trainer system based on perceptive sportswear

Unconstrained monitoring of runner's body movements is important for grasping the running performances based on natural body motions. A perceptive sportswear, which means a wear itself having the perception to monitor human body motions without constraint, can be realized by using hetero-core fiber optics with advantages of thinness, light-weight, and flexibility. We have developed such sportswear with the embedded optical fiber which can monitor the body motion based on the light intensity changes. In this report, the perceptive sportswear with the mobile capability has first been tested in actual running field for monitoring the body forms and paces during running.