Singapore’s national swim team will get a new and improved “coach” that is powered by artificial intelligence and leveraging drone technology.
Developed by researchers from the Singapore Management University (SMU) and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), the system helps coaches analyse their swimmers’ performance, including stroke duration, swimming velocity, and the symmetry of the swimmer’s moving body, in real-time.
The team is currently working with Singapore Aquatics (SAQ) to produce real-time analytics of swimmers at the National Training Centre (NTC) to improve their performance.
During training, the drone — which comes with a high-resolution camera — flies about eight metres above the swimmers as they swim. The video images of the swimmers are then downloaded and analysed by custom analytics and user interface (UI) software built by Tran Ngoc Doan Thu, a post-doctoral student and recent SMU Computer Science PhD graduate.
Tran is part of a team led by SMU professor of computer science Rajesh Balan and advised by Assistant Professor Kenny Choo from SUTD’s Information Systems Technology and Design pillar and Design and Artificial Intelligence programme.
The analytics software uses AI models and computer vision algorithms to recognise human poses and swimming events based on the swim coaches’ expertise for the swimmers’ videos.
The custom UI allows the coaches to visualise the results and gain a deeper understanding of the athlete’s swimming technique, namely the symmetry which reflects overall body balance, stroke duration and swimming velocity in real-time, as well as how these performance factors differ between training and competition.
The results are then made available to the coaches, at the poolside, on a tablet device using video analytics and the custom UI.
Balan said this research can potentially elevate Singapore’s sporting performance by making coaching more precise, efficient and cost-effective without huge investments in computing hardware. Real-time insights from video analytics are proving to be a valuable tool in helping coaches to fine-tune their training strategies with greater accuracy.
“In projects like these, where drones and AI-driven analytics work alongside coaches, we see how human-AI interaction can lead to more precise, actionable insights that ultimately improve outcomes,” said Choo.
