Racket Positioning for IMU-based Measurement of Table Tennis Services

Abstract

This paper presents a method to measure a table tennis service stroke using an inertial measurement unit (IMU) mounted on a racket. Although the trajectory of the racket can be estimated through double integration of IMU measurements, such naïve methods typically result in significant error. We have previously proposed to correct such accumulated errors by constraining the initial and final states; more specifically, we initialized the racket position to a known position and returned it to the identical position after the play. Here arises the necessity of positioning the racket with high precision. We developed a tool that helps user repositioning a racket precisely. The design and evaluation results of the tool are detailed in this paper.