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Piezoelectric Tennis Rackets
morcheeba writes "EETimes has an article on a piezoelectric tennis racket made by Head Sport AG. It uses piezoelectric fibers to damp vibrations and, due to regulations, it doesn't contain a battery. Although it's been out a while, it's now gaining credibility with professionals and has made it into the quarterfinals of the French Open."
Usually with sports gear, one tries to make a long-lasting product. Piezo fibres seem like they would wear out fast, and the handle components would need often repair. I suppose it doesn't matter when you have Nike as a sponsorer....
Now, many metals have been developed that have a 'memory' I am surprised these haven't been used in conjunction with the common carbon-fibre thread used now.
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They're using it in skis, too.
I would like to see if it is usable in automobile suspensions. Active electronic dampening should out perform any hydraulics.
Come to think of it, this technology could be used to make an active muffler for auto exhaust systems. It could also absorb driveline vibrations.
Wonder if it could do anything for crankshaft vibration?
hanzie
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
The Australian Football League allowed the use of gloves 7 or so years back. The AFL has been in existance over 100 years without them but that perceived advantage lead to half of the players (at least) playing the game using them. Juniors at the local clubs naturally followed suit, and the sport as a whole suffered because of fewer numbers participating due to the cost.
I love technology, but the advantages and disadvantages of somthing like this have got to looked at carefully before this should be permitted at any level.
That is to say, if the racket can make a difference based on the energy it can recover from the ball impact, what could you do if you built a self generating power system into the racket handle, much like technology used in a self winding electronic watch, but at a much larger scale? Of course, without a battery the power generated could be stored in a capacitor until used. While this approach seems far beyond the sprit of the game, one could say the same about piezoelectric technology in the first place. I'm just thinking, if it going to be used at all, why not get energy from all racket movement as well as ball impact.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Wow! The International Tennis Federation must've really been out to lunch on this one, or maybe these are the same guys who run the U.S. Patent Office. Their rule against batteries was obviously meant to thwart the use of devices with enough power to physically affect play. What could a digital clock in the handle do?
They just didn't anticipate using a tennis ball's impact energy to warp the racquet to counteract the player's mistakes, which is what this racquet does.
So okay, I guess we can look forward to gyro-torque batting gloves, pass-booster elbow wraps for quarterbacks, and hockey pucks with tooth-targeting microcameras.
Hmm... higher vibration dampening
== less stress on elbows ( lowers risk of tennis elbow ) == less fatigue == longer play time == more practice == better 'talent'
So, by your token, more $$$ COULD == higher talent through increased practice time and play, and by all means should be allowed in competition.
Until I see you on ESPN2 swinging a stiff racquet for 10+ years without surgery on your elbow, shut your whining trap. Most ALL sports that require equipment ( other than a brain ) are dependant on technological improvments.
--Chemguru
There's nothing inherently fair about naked wrestling, though, nor inherently unfair about using more advanced equipment. All other things being equal, including skill level, a large muscular person will win a wrestling match with a smaller slighter person. That's why weight classes were invented, to try and make sure that it was the skill that won out. This logic still only partially levels the field though; some people have inherently, genetically faster reflexes than others. What are you going to do, force them to bely down a couple of shots of reflex inhibitor (flavor optional) before competing?
The competition in sports is between two or more people, under some arbitrary set of rules. If you want to make sure everybody uses the same equipment, then you specifiy it in the rules; bats may or may not be made of aluminum, players may or may not ride an electric cart to the next stage of the competition.
Personally, I'd like to see both a naked olympics (not necessarily actually naked, but not technically assisted) AND a total free-for-all - not only are you allowed to be "professional" under the ridiculously convoluted Olympic rules regarding acceptance of money, but you can take drugs, train in a 3G centrifuge, be surgically cyborged into a totally transhuman state, et cetera... It'd only be a decade or so before all US objection to genetic engineering faded away once ESPN started lobbying, I betcha!