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Timing Gates
Why accurate timing gates are hopelessly inaccurate, with a 5% error on short sprints.


For the example above: a 20m sprint at 10m/s, with 1 interval gate.
  - At the start. The athlete already started the sprint, before the optical beam is cut, approx 45ms late.
  - At the interval timing-gate, by chance, the gate triggers near the center mass of the body. ok
  - At the finish gate. A knee cuts the optical beam to early. A 0.5m difference.
  - Timing gates need to be synchronized. Typical systems have, a 5ms inaccuracy.
A 1ms display resolution gives the end user the impression the system has an accuracy of 1ms, which is not the case.
Adding up the above mentioned errors in this example:
Start: 45 ms
Interval: 0 ms
Finish: 50 ms
System sync: 5 ms
100ms total error.
100ms, expressed as a distance, at 10m/s, is equivalent to an error of 1m.
(Similar to what an experienced person with a stopwatch would achieve)
Over a distance of 20m this means a 5% error, worse case, and 2.5% best-case.
Conclusion: timing gates, used to evaluate short sprints, have a high error.
At 100m the inaccuracy is still 1%.

Time differences between the top athletes at 100m sprint is about 10ms.
Timing gates have 100ms inaccuracy over 100m, and are therefor not very suitable as a measurement tool to monitor improvement.

UWB based LPS tracking systems have an accuracy of +/- 0.01%, over any distance.
This is 100x more accurate, compared to timing gates. Suitable for top athelete tracking.
The disadvantage of using UWB based LPS tracking system is: A light weight tracker is added on front of the shin or onto the shoe.
The advantage of wearing a tracker is: Leg motion of every step is observed in high resolution. Typically 200Hz mocap (motion capture).
Using inverse kinematics, muscle load can be determined and other relevant metrics.
SpO2 (blood oxygen) levels and heart rate are part of the sensor suite of some trackers.




BUYER GUIDES
A Buyer’s Guide to Sports Timing for Speed
The 6 Best Timing Systems For Sprint Testing In 2023
The Best Wearable Technology for Athletes


PHOTO FINISH, how does it work

40000 frames per second line camera

VELOCITY BASED TRAINING.
	maximum sprint speed timing gates error See video 06:00 to 08:00 download video: