Vodafone’s Networks Centre of Excellence announced the start of the SUB2 project for body sensor trials. According to Vodafone, the SUB2 project will enable elite athletes and their coaches attempting to run a marathon in less than two hours for the first time to monitor running efficiency and body and environmental temperature in real time.
Back in 2017, Vodafone built a SUB2 smartwatch app to provide telemetry with location tracking using mobile networks. Kenenisa Bekele used the app as his digital pacemaker in the 2017 Berlin marathon.
Working with partners, Vodafone engineers have now enabled a series of body sensors to communicate with the SUB2 app over a mobile network to contact time, cadence and strike angle, enable 3D visualization, and measure skin and land surface temperature.
Motion sensors from Gait Up, a spin-out from the University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) and the Swiss Institute of Technology of Lausanne (EPFL), provide running efficiency metrics that will help physiologists working in coaching teams to determine an athlete’s running mechanics and communicate advice for injury avoidance and performance enhancement, even while they are still out on a training run.
3D visualisation capabilities developed by a start-up called Notch is designed to reconstruct running movements in 3D on a smartphone or laptop, which can help those responsible for an athletes care and performance implement corrective running strategies. Using sensors from French lab Bodycap the SUB2 app can now inform athletes if they are hotter than expected during a run and should change their water intake strategy. The team expect to also be able to show core temperature within the app in the near future.
