Golf Speed Measurement

Use the A1 radar sensor to measure the efficiency of your golf swing. By measuring the speed of the club head and ball during the golf swing, you can calculate your smash factor, SF, which is a common measurement among golfers to keep track on the efficiency of their swing.

HARDWARE SETUP

To implement this proof of concept, we used the following hardware:

Radar sensor board XR112, connected to the XC112 connector board using a flex cable
To compensate for the small radar cross section (RCS) of the golf ball, we also used a Fresnel (FZP) lens
Raspberry Pi, version 3B or later (we used 3B for this setup)
PC running Exploration Tool

In our demo, the sensor was placed approximately 90 cm right behind the ball, pointed against it slightly tilted upwards. The sensor was rotated such that the H-plane (wide half-power beamwidth (HPBW)) is vertical, making the beam narrow in the horizontal axis.

To try out the feasibility of using a radar sensor integrated in a mobile phone, we put the sensor behind gorilla glass in a mobile phone mock up which was placed on the ground as seen in the video above. However, in order to more easily get a good result, we recommend using an FZP lens as listed above.