Ripken: Baseball Injury Prevention System

Overview

Shoulder and elbow injuries are common among baseball players due to repetitive throwing with improper mechanics. Ripken is a wearable motion sensor system worn on the elbow to detect inappropriate throwing form, enabling both throw counting and real-time feedback during practices and games.

Approach

• Elbow-mounted IMU: Capturing throwing motion dynamics using inertial measurement units attached to the elbow
• Real-time analysis: Immediate classification of throwing mechanics to identify potentially harmful patterns
• Automatic pitch counting: Continuous tracking of throw counts without manual recording

Results

• Successfully demonstrated real-time detection of improper throwing mechanics during practice sessions
• Enabled automatic pitch count tracking, reducing manual monitoring burden for coaches
• Validated the feasibility of wearable-based injury prevention for baseball athletes

Significance

Ripken demonstrates that lightweight wearable sensors can provide real-time biomechanical feedback for injury prevention in sports, offering a practical and low-cost tool for coaches and athletes to monitor throwing form and prevent overuse injuries.