Low-cost dry swimming machine using Kinect biomotion capture

A dry swimming machine is a machine that allows swim training or exercise on dry land. Few dry swimming machines are commercially available for specialized swim training and stroke style evaluation. These machines are usually expensive and not designed or made suitable for physical exercise. Most of these devices are sensor based. Few high-end swimming machines have been developed and customized for the motion picture industry are based on biomotion capture (mocap). These devices are very expensive and not commercially available. In 2010, Microsoft introduced “Kinect”, which is a line of motion sensing input devices for Xbox video game consoles and Windows PCs. The device features an RGB camera, depth sensor, microphones, and proprietary software, which provide full-body 3D motion capture, facial recognition and voice recognition capabilities. This study takes advantage of this technology to build a low-cost swimming machine with motion capture capabilities. The skeletal motion captured using the Kinect camera is streamed to a Matlab routine and analyzed to control a motor designed to lift the swimmer, depending on their swimming technique and performance compared to a professional swimmer data saved in a database.