AI in Sports Explained by a High School Student Who's Played Badminton Since First Grade
An Overview of AI in Sports
In today's society, human's living quality has primarily increased with the introduction of advanced technologies and scientific developments. Artificial intelligence plays a predominant role in boosting rapidly social and science development. As one of the greatest human inventions in the era, AI can now interpret more complex algorithms and actions, enabling them to be utilized in different fields and jobs. It is not only widespread in common careers such as engineering, computer science, etc, but can also be applied to sports.
Training Method
Badminton is a racquet sport that originated from Asia countries. Same as other sports, badminton incorporates both physical strength and mental strategies. Most of the top trainers worldwide use the traditional manual one-to-one or one-to-more methods, yet those styles of practicing could be inefficient over time. When a player reaches a designated level, it is difficult to break through and have drastic improvement. Thus, incorporating different algorithms, machine learning, and big data analysis could benefit the trainer's daily practice. Knowing that the current technology is limited with its functionalities, this topic has become a focus of systematic research over these years with the goal of introducing more AI in sports.
Tournament Strategies
The ultimate goal for an athlete is to win tournaments, hopefully, Olympics. Players can be familiar with opponents they have met before, yet how can players guarantee their wins or apply a specific strategy for international tournaments? Meeting new or unfamiliar opponents? Nowadays, many coaches use big data to analyze their own team members' strengths and weaknesses, and also contestants around the world. Machine learning benefits the process of examining the players' playing style, tactics and fundamental movements based on their previous tournaments. Eventually, coaches can have a suitable game plan for the players supported by the pre-analyzed data.
Hawk-Eye Technology
People that play a racquet sport will be familiar with this technology. Hawk-Eye is a world-famous tracking system used in many sports to conclude arguable line calls. It is demonstrated by an instant video replay of the shot, determining the final landing spot of the bird. This type of graphic implementation was first imported into the actual situation in 2014; Badminton World Federation included the technology after various rounds of testing and modelling. Hawk-eye brings a fair game that the line-call is no longer solely dependent on judges' eye, which could be sometimes incorrect. Furthermore, hawk-eye can also be utilized to measure the shuttle's speed and other badminton insights of the matches.
Injury Recovery
Athletes' injuries are unpreventable. Success in competitions can come down to millimetres and milliseconds. An effective training regimen has long been recognized as the essential key to success. Although players often take long, consistent hours into training, without professional physios or information on their body situation, objective factors could lead to pessimistic circumstances. Big data can keep track of athletes' workload - intensity, essential footwork, heart rate - that can help adjust their training method. Moreover, once an injury appears and is discovered, the physios can support them with the numerous data collected during the process and set up the best fit recovery procedure.
Conclusion
Artificial Intelligence presently plays a predominant role in society, is efficiently utilized in different jobs, and helps humans with their advanced functions. With the continual exploration of machine learning, various fields will develop at an optimal speed and profit from it, particularly with AI in sports.
Work Cited:
https://bwfbadminton.com/
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbot.2021.621196/full
