Sports-performance data-analytics company Kinduct Technologies is using ultra-wideband (UWB) RFID technology from Zebra Technologies as part of its Athlete Management System for the National Football League (NFL) and other sports agencies. Since it began offering its solution with the UWB functionality from Zebra a month ago, about a dozen of its 120 professional trams and associations have been using the technology, while others are currently in conversations with Kinduct to do so, says Travis McDonough, the company’s CEO and founder.
Kinduct is an analytics software provider that focuses on human performance, health and wellness solutions. Its offerings are being used to track the condition, fitness and practice results of athletes for four key purposes, he says: helping athletes to improve their performance, mitigate injuries, identify new talent and increase profitability with data. Kinduct can provide and manage a ball player’s sleep, nutrition, performance during training and potential for injuries, as well as identify ways in which teams could tailor their training for each player. It uses a wide variety of different sport technologies, McDonough says, including sensors, RFID, GPS and video capture, along with medical records and statistics feeds, to aggregate thousands of different metrics about each athlete. Kinduct provides the software platform, he adds, and customers “choose what data they want to analyze and act upon.”
In the meantime, sports agencies such as the NFL and NCAA have been using Zebra’s UWB RFID tags since 2014, embedded between layers of plastic in the players’ shoulder pads (see RFID Drafted to Track NFL Players’ Every Move During Games). To date, approximately one-third of the NFL teams are using the technology during practices, according to Jill Stelfox, Zebra’s VP and general manager of location solutions
Kinduct says it wanted to offer a solution that could combine the data from Zebra’s technology with its own, thereby providing a more holistic system for players and their managers. The resulting system includes the UWB sensors worn by players in the field during training and games, which transmit data to Kinduct’s cloud-based software-as-a-service solution. Teams can then access and manage the data via the Kinduct system. Features include everything from high school-level scouting and recruiting to training and professional game performance, with data viewable for fans.
For instance, many NFL football teams are already using Kinduct’s technology with smaller, college football programs—in some cases, with Zebra’s UWB system. With the use of the UWB technology, Stelfox explains, athletes wear the Zebra sensor while practicing and playing games.
The device pulses a 6.35 to 6.76 GHz signal about 25 times per second, and that tag is then read by a network of UWB receivers at a distance of up to 325 feet. In that way, readers can capture transmissions and identify the athlete’s movements, including how fast he moves, turns or decelerates. That data can help team recruiters identify the skills of potential future professional ball players, as well as determine whether they have skills in specific areas of interest that might make them similar to other popular or successful players.
In the case of professional players, the technology can be used to observe the speed and strength of individuals during training, and compare them against other players and their own previous results. When that data is married to the Kinduct data, such as their nutrition, sleep, injuries or overall health information, the coaches and trainers can view each player’s strengths and weaknesses and thereby determine how training might be adjusted to improve performance and prevent injuries.
Kinduct also offers an athlete-facing app so that, when authorized, they can view select data about their own performance and how it compares to others, as well as view what their training regimen should be for that day. They can also input requested information, such as the amount of sleep they had the night before. The Kinduct software can alter training plans based on a particular player’s history, then report that alteration to the player as well—such as pressing 150 pounds rather than 200, due to a joint weakness.
While many teams have been using Kinduct’s solution for years—as well as, in some cases, the Zebra technology—they were siloed and were not available during either training or games. Now, with the partnership, Kinduct is offering the solution with the UWB feature for use in training, as well as during games. NFL teams are now in conversations with Zebra and Kinduct to determine how athlete performance data can be shared with football fans at home or at a stadium during a game.
Outside of the NFL, McDonough says some customers use Kinduct computer vision technology for location tracking. However, this technology is not available in both stadiums and on fields where training takes place, meaning that practice and actual game-based data cannot be compared on a single platform.
With the technology, using the Zebra RFID sensors, McDonough says he expects teams will find that preventable injury rates will decrease as trainers and coaches better understand when a risk of injury is possible. In the meantime, performance will continue to climb as athletes can be better trained to reach their maximum performance potential.
The data also provides better scouting for teams, and even within teams, especially for players with very specific skills. For instance, Stelfox explains, if a player is injured, the team can use the data to identify the key skills of the injured player so that it can find a substitute player with similar skills. The NFL teams have already been using Zebra technology for coaching, to determine how well training paid off during a game, and to formulate game-planning tactics. “If they know that a receiver is always more successful catching from one angle,” she states, “they can redesign the plays accordingly.”