Video Analysis of Wheel Pushing Actions for Wheelchair Basketball Players

In wheelchair basketball, the performance of a player is not only determined by his/her physical ability but also depending on the settings of the wheelchair such as the height and/or angle of its seat and the size and/or position of its wheels. However, these wheelchair settings are based on the rules of thumb of players and instructors, and there are no specific guidelines or rules regarding the settings of wheelchair according to the physical characteristics and/or types of disabilities of the athletes. This study, therefore, aims to provide the suggestions to improve the performance of the athletes by analyzing the wheelchair starting actions in comparison to the top players with the highest ability of wheelchair operation. We propose the method to measure the detailed behaviors of players during starting actions from video footages. Through the experimental verification, we successfully retrieved the detailed behaviors of players and wheelchairs. We also confirmed it is possible to measure the difference in the behaviors among multiple participants and different wheelchair settings, respectively.