What’s New: EXOS, a leader in the field of advancing human performance, is piloting Intel’s 3D Athlete Tracking (3DAT) technology in training aspiring professional athletes to reach their peak performance. As pro days loom, these athletes seek to take their game to the next level with 3DAT by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to gain actionable insights about their velocity, acceleration and biomechanics when sprinting.
“Metrics that were previously unmeasurable by the naked eye are now being revealed with Intel’s 3DAT technology. We’re able to take that information, synthesize it and turn it into something tangible for our coaches and athletes. It’s a gamechanger when the tiniest of adjustments can lead to real, impactful results for our athletes.”
– Monica Laudermilk, vice president of research at EXOS
Why It Matters: 3DAT is putting relevant data at the fingertips of coaches and elite athletes that, up to this point, have either been nonexistent or hard to get. By providing precise skeletal analysis and performance metrics through simple video, athletes, coaches, and anyone interested in human performance can now know what the body is doing and how to make it perform better.
“There’s a massive gap in the sports and movement field, between what people feel when they move and what they actually know that they’re doing,” said Ashton Eaton, two-time Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon, and Product Development engineer in Intel’s Olympic Technology Group. “When I was running the 100-meter dash, I’d work with my coach to make adjustments to shave off fractions of a second, but it was all by feel. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, because I didn’t fully know what my body was actually doing. But 3DAT allows athletes to understand precisely what their body is doing while in motion, so they can precisely target where to make tweaks to get faster or better.”
How It Works: 3DAT technology is hands-free for athletes. It leverages cameras to film athletes as they run drills, so they are unburdened from wearing sensors or deviating from their regular training program. The system sends the video data – 60 frames per second – to the cloud for analysis on Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors with built-in Intel® Deep Learning Boost AI acceleration capabilities. Coaches then receive reports and charts that provide a detailed overview of the athletes’ sessions. The coach can drill in deeper on body mechanics or trouble spots to better understand what minor tweaks they can implement to help athletes achieve their full athletic potential.
“3DAT is giving us information, and insight, not just into the technique of how people are running and how they can improve, but also what might be holding them back. This data enables us to make adjustments in the weight room to help unlock more potential on the field,” said Craig Friedman, senior vice president of EXOS’ Performance Innovation Team.
What Comes Next: Through the continued partnership with EXOS, Intel will have access to expert coaches, elite athletes and high performers to glean additional insights on how this technology can be utilized. Intel’s engineers continue to relentlessly pursue new innovations that enable developers to build anything they can imagine on top of 3DAT technology to propel the field of human performance.
More Context: Artificial Intelligence at Intel
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About Intel
Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) is an industry leader, creating world-changing technology that enables global progress and enriches lives. Inspired by Moore’s Law, we continuously work to advance the design and manufacturing of semiconductors to help address our customers’ greatest challenges. By embedding intelligence in the cloud, network, edge and every kind of computing device, we unleash the potential of data to transform business and society for the better. To learn more about Intel’s innovations, go to newsroom.intel.com and intel.com.
