GPS performance sprints

White Paper Catapult Innovations October 2009 Page 1 of 6

Abstract:
The validity and bias of Catapults minimaxV4 was quantified for short sprint efforts that are characteristic of many team sports. This included both straight line sprints of 10 and 20m and also short courses involving several 90 degree changes of direction (complex courses). Previous research has established that minimax is a good tool for measuring long distance events in sport1, however earlier generation devices had trouble with shorter sprint events. minimaxV4 has a completely new generation GPS engine targeted for team sports. It has better accuracy, faster data rate (10Hz) and shorter lock on time in difficult GPS environments like stadiums. Ten replicates each for 10m and 20m straight line sprints were compared against criterion measures, with 2 different running speeds. Then ten replicates for both a 12.5m and 25m course were performed, where the said course had four 90 direction changes (see figure 1).

Figure 1: Short courses with direction change

Validity was quantified with the standard error of the estimate (SEE) and Bias estimated by summing total sprint distances across all trials and evaluating the error as a percentage.
Results:

minimaxV4 showed a Standard Estimate of Error of 2% (40cm) for 20m sprints and 4% (40cm) for 10m sprints. The bias was 1% (20cm) and -4% (40cm) respectively. (The experimental error was estimated at 2% and 3.5% respectively). For the courses involving changes of direction, minimaxV4 showed a Standard Estimate of Error of 3% for both the 12.5m and 25m course (which is equivalent to 37.5 and 75cm respectively). The bias was 9% for the 25m course and 15% for the 12m course. (The experimental error was estimated at 10% for both courses mainly due to the difficulty of an athlete keeping exactly to the path while running). These results would indicate minimaxV4 has vey good performance for short sprints and good performance for short courses involving direction changes. These are typically events of interest in team
1

Petersen, Pyne, Portus, Dawson: Validity and Reliability of GPS Units to Monitor Cricket-Specific Movement Patterns, International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 2009, 4, 381-393

1 Dalmore Dve, Scoresby, 3179, Australia, www.catapultinnovations.com

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GPS performance sprints

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sports.

Introduction
A key application for minimax is quantifying movement patterns based on game demands. This enables sports specific conditioning and recovery programs to be developed based on a needs analysis of an athletes sport, team playing style and position. Traditionally practitioners have had to rely on time and motion studies to evaluate these movement patterns, which is very labour intensive and suffers from accuracy problems. Modern athlete tracking systems such as minimax offer a much more automated and potentially accurate method of capturing this information. Whereas several previous studies have validated the use of GPS athlete tracking for longer distance activities, short sprint efforts have typically shown large errors. minimaxV4 is a fourth generation device with improvements in GPS performance. The intention of this study is to investigate its performance with short sprint efforts and sprints involving multiple direction changes. One of the objectives of athlete tracking systems is to monitor variations in performance between players and between performances from the same player. Therefore it is important that the error in the athlete tracking system is significantly less that the variation being measured. In other words the system needs to have an adequately small detection limit, preferably to be able to spot variations of ~10%.

Methods
Experimental Design

The viability of GPS monitoring for short sprints was evaluated by separately investigating the validity and bias of minimaxV4 units. The same participant (male, aged 36 y) participated in all of the measurement trials to eliminate betweensubject variability in estimates of reliability and validity. The minimaxV4 devices were placed outside, and switched on for 10 minutes before the experiment began which ensured the ephemeris and almanac data for the GPS was downloaded from the satellites to provide best performance. The minimaxV4 devices were mounted on the athlete using the recommended Catapult Team Sports Harness since the GPS antenna in minimaxV4 is tuned specially for this environment (material and proximity to the body). All courses began with a standing start and ended with a standing stop, giving a clear indication in the data file of where the sprints began and ended. The sprint effort was then marked as from when the velocity was reported by the GPS as zero just before the sprint to where the velocity was again reported zero just after the sprint (see figure 2).

1 Dalmore Dve, Scoresby, 3179, Australia, www.catapultinnovations.com

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Figure 2: example of sprint detection in the raw data file

highlighted section shows the sprint

This approach is preferable to using zero velocity as a start marker in the data and a completely different method for detection the finish line (like timing gates) since the time basis of the 2 systems may not always be equivalent. Kalman filtering in GPS systems typically causes small distortions in the time domain which exacerbates this potential problem. All courses were marked with a measuring wheel that claims an accuracy of 0.5%. Over 20m this translates to a possible error of 10cm. It was estimated that further experimental error was introduced by the athletes limited ability to start exactly on the start line or finish on the finish line of approximately 30cm for the straight line sprints. So the total estimated experimental error was 40cm or 2% for the 20m straight line sprints, or 3.5% for the 10m straight line sprints. For the courses involving changes in direction, additional experimental error is probably introduced from the athlete being unable to keep exactly to the path especially around 90 degree corners at running speed. It was anticipated that a negative bias would result in the data due to the athlete cutting the corners at speed. It is estimated that the experimental error for these courses would be 10%. This is substantiated by graphical inspection of the GPS trace vs the marked course as shown in figure 3. This shows the GPS trace from one replicate of the 12.5m complex course overlaid on the marked course. The path divergence seems characteristic of corner cutting at speed, rather than exhibiting random GPS positional errors.

1 Dalmore Dve, Scoresby, 3179, Australia, www.catapultinnovations.com

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Figure 3: Experimental error from 'cutting corners' at running speed around a complex course

The data was analysed using the LoganPlus software package v4.3.0.
Statistical Analyses

Validity was estimated by evaluating the standard deviation of percentage errors from the criterion distance. This is equal to the Standard Error of Estimate for the population of possible results. Bias was determined by subtracting the criterion distance from the GPS estimated distance, and then dividing the difference score by the criterion distance, or alternatively summing all the sprints and comparing the theoretical total distance calculated from the criterion distance.

1 Dalmore Dve, Scoresby, 3179, Australia, www.catapultinnovations.com

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Results
CRITERION DISTANCE replicates 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Average Standard deviation Bias SEE Validity 20m straight line 20.07 19.55 20.08 20.37 20.07 20.36 20.27 20.57 21.21 19.94 20.2 0.4 1% 2% 10m straight line 9.68 9.33 8.96 9.89 10.28 9.86 9.6 9.56 9.74 9.12 9.6 0.4 -4% 4% 25m direction changes 23.55 23.25 23.41 22.8 22.31 23.03 22.38 22.54 21.24 22.45 22.7 0.7 -9% 3% 12.5m direction changes 10.71 10.9 10.44 10.55 11.15 9.61 10.81 10.67 10.54 10.37 10.6 0.4 -15% 3%

Speed jog jog jog jog jog run run run run run run

Standard Error of the Estimate for the straight line sprints were 2% for the 20m course and 4% for the 10m course. Standard Error of the Estimate for the complex courses were 3% for the 25m course and 3% for the 12.5m course. (For reference, a similar internal validation study for a previous generation device minimaxX 3.0 showed for 20m straight line sprints, a Standard Estimate of Error of 5%. Independent studies reported between 4.6 and 7.4%2).
Bias

The experimental results indicated a bias of 1% for the 20m straight course and 4% for the 10m straight course. Experimental error estimated at 2% may be partly responsible for the bias. The experimental results indicated a bias of 9% for the 25m complex course and 15% for the 12.5m complex course. Experimental error estimated at 10% may be partly responsible for the bias. (For reference, a similar internal validation study for a previous generation device minimaxX 3.0 showed for 20m straight line sprints, a bias 3%.)

The GPS maps of the experiments are shown below (figure 4). There is a good match between the geometry of the GPS maps and marked courses.

Petersen, Pyne and Chung: Validation and Reliability of two team sports version 3.0 Catapult minimaxX units, 2009

1 Dalmore Dve, Scoresby, 3179, Australia, www.catapultinnovations.com

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Figure 4: GPS maps: top 20m straight line; second from top 10m straight line; third from top 25m complex course; bottom 12.5m complex course. Five sprints shown from each experiment.

Discussion
Successive generations of athlete tracking technology continue to make improvements in the ability of the technology to detect small changes in performance associated with typical team sports. Whereas previous research has established the validity of minimax in longer distance measurements, these results indicate very good performance for shorter sprints and complex sprint events involving multiple direction changes. These are key areas of interest in team sports. The performance of any GPS device will vary with the satellite configuration available at the time and location of the experiment. The most dominant of these 2 effects is location. The urban canyon effect in cities where high-rise buildings obscure satellite reception is a typical problem. There experiments were performed in a relatively open environment where buildings and trees did not obscure satellites at more than 20 degree elevation. This is not always available to practitioners who train or compete in larger stadiums. For reference, during the experiments, the average Horizontal Dilution of Precision was 0.99, with between 11 and 12 satellites tracked.

1 Dalmore Dve, Scoresby, 3179, Australia, www.catapultinnovations.com

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