The goal of many competitive sports is to complete a track or course faster than the competition.  Practicing for such sports often involves tracking one’s performance, which can be difficult for winter sports due to the lack of measurable motion.  Therefore, with the help of the Air Force Research Lab, Team Six has designed a lightweight speed and distance sensor that can be used by skiers or snowboarders.  This project is being entered into a competition among universities for sponsorship as a capstone design project by USAFRL.

This sensor allows users to track their progress by recording their top speed, total distance traveled, and other measures of performance.  The team accomplished this by integrating a Global Positioning System (GPS) and an inertial navigation system (INS).  The GPS will be used to reset the INS and minimize error, while the INS has the ability to determine erroneous GPS readings.  The robustness of this design provides the user with accurate, meaningful, and useful data.  The user can view the data on the LCD after a run, or review it later on a PC using USB.  For both professional and winter sports enthusiasts, this device can provide an invaluable edge over the competition.  


http://www.egr.msu.edu/classes/ece480/goodman/fall09/group06/