Optimal cyclist position enhanced using thermal imaging.

One of the most advanced bike-fitting studios worldwide is tapping into the benefit of Flir thermal imaging technology to push the boundaries of sports science and biomechanics at all levels of cycling. Bikefit Van Staeyen (Antwerpen B) uses Flir-generated infrared images to visualise body heat and pressure distribution in real time, subsequently optimising rider position and bike set up. The enterprise offers professional bike fitting based on more than 20 years of experience in cycling. Founded by brothers Kevin and Michael Van Staeyen (a former professional road racing cyclist), the business has built its success on extensive expertise in sports science, biomechanics and cycling. What started as a passion for precision and performance evolved into one of the world’s most advanced bike-fitting studios.

The principal differentiator of Bikefit Van Staeyen is its dual-expert approach: every bike fit is performed by both brothers working together, merging technical analysis and professional cycling experience with medical understanding.

“This synergy allows us to identify patterns and dysfunctions far beyond what conventional systems can capture,” explains Kevin.

Real-time insight.
Central to the process is the use of advanced thermal imaging technology from Flir, which provides a real-time view into physiological asymmetries, pressure distribution, and underlying muscular imbalances.

“We use a Flir infrared camera to study a heat map of a rider pedaling to optimise body position and bike set up,” says Kevin. “By combining thermography with motion tracking, force analysis, and EMG [electromyographic] data, we can see what others can only guess: how the rider’s body reacts, compensates, and adapts under load. We’ve named our thermography application ‘Lava.flow’, a process that allows us to understand and optimise injury-prone areas, muscle activation, and pressure points in a completely new way.”

Bikefit Van Staeyen initially used a Flir E76 thermal imaging camera but has since migrated to the newer E96. The E96 is Flir’s first pistol-grip camera with 640 × 480 thermal resolution, allowing users to survey targets safely and quickly. This advanced sensor offers complete coverage of near and distant targets through a range of lens options. In addition, Flir Ignite provides the automatic uploading of E96 images directly from the camera to the cloud for easy, secure storage and sharing.

As pioneers in thermal analysis for cycling applications, Bikefit Van Staeyen works in close collaboration with Thermal Focus, a Flir Platinum Partner and stockist of the largest selection of Flir infrared cameras in the Benelux region.

Temperature in focus.
The hot spots and cold spots identified by Flir thermal cameras serve as direct indicators of how a cyclist’s body functions on the bike. An excessive temperature increase in certain areas can indicate overexertion, friction, or poor posture.

Using the Flir E96, Bikefit Van Staeyen can: detect hot spots and elevated pressure zones on the saddle, shoes, or handlebars; identify asymmetric muscle loading and unbalanced activation patterns; analyse vascular restrictions that may lead to numbness or reduced performance; and detect thermal irregularities that could indicate overload.

Bikefitter adjusting cycleheight

With this in-depth thermal analysis, the brothers are able to identify a range of issues that prompt adjustments for the optimal riding experience. For instance, asymmetric heat distribution around the kneecap points to a possible biomechanical problem, while too much heat in the ball of the foot typically means incorrect positioning of the cleat position. Similarly, increased temperature in the lower back could be the result of a compensatory mechanism or incorrect saddle adjustment.

"While traditional bike fits are often based on observation and feel, we use objective, data-driven measurements from the Flir thermal camera,” reveals Kevin. “Our Lava.flow process gives us unique, real-time insight into how a rider’s body responds while cycling. By way of example, we recently helped a cyclist experiencing unexplained knee pain during rides. Using our Flir infrared imaging technology, we observed excessive heat accumulation in the tibia [tibialis anterior muscle]. Thanks to the Flir imaging of this increased heat and our leg length software, we discovered that this leg was structurally shorter and that the rider had to pull the pedal excessively upward when cycling, resulting in knee pain.”

All levels of cyclist.
Cyclists turning to Bikefit Van Staeyen for assistance range from dedicated amateurs to World Tour professionals. They trust the company for the same reason: attention to detail. From saddle pressure to neural load; from crank dynamics to thermal asymmetry - no variable is left unexplored. The company is also pioneering the bike-fit domain at university level, a first in Europe, by collaborating with the University of Antwerp to integrate data-driven approaches.

“We want to serve as the fundamental partner and reference point for thermal camera technology within the sport of cycling,” concludes Kevin. “Our ambition is to help shape the future of performance diagnostics, not just for our own athletes, but as a knowledge and technology hub for teams and riders worldwide. With our expertise and experience we can demonstrate the immense potential of thermography in biomechanical and performance analysis.”

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@Van_Staeyen_M @flir @mepaxIntPR  #BikeFit #Sport

MES mantains quality in sports nutrition facilities.

Smart manufacturing platform to unify manufacturing, enhance real-time visibility, and empower THG for continuous improvement across several sites.

THG Nutrition, home to Myprotein — the world’s largest online sports nutrition brand — has selected the Rockwell Automation's  Plex Manufacturing Execution System (MES) to drive operational excellence, support rapid growth, and unify its manufacturing processes across multiple sites.

THG Nutrition delivers high-quality sports nutrition products to more than 70 countries, operating multiple manufacturing facilities worldwide. As part of THG PLC, a global e-commerce and technology leader, THG Nutrition is committed to innovation, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. THG’s facility in Warrington, United Kingdom, among its largest manufacturing sites, will be the first to implement Plex MES, with plans to expand across additional locations.

“Rockwell Automation’s deep understanding of the food and beverage sector was important in our selection of Plex,” said Adam Pyne, production director for THG manufacturing. “The platform’s ability to address auditing requirements, streamline processes, and deliver measurable financial and operational value set it apart from competitors.

“Plex gives us the platform to act fast and smart, and with real-time dashboards, guided work instructions, and mobile-enabled inventory tracking, our teams can make informed decisions and optimize scheduling. Plex breaks down operational siloes and empowers our people to collaborate across departments, supporting our commitment to continuous improvement and world-class quality.”

THG Nutrition’s decision to adopt Plex was driven by the need for real-time operational visibility, streamlined quality management, and efficient inventory and production scheduling. Previously, the company relied on legacy systems and manual processes, which created siloes between departments. By choosing Plex, THG Nutrition gains a unified, cloud-based solution that provides a digital infrastructure that continually updates to the latest software version. This dynamism increases cost predictability while ensuring compliance and strengthening operational resiliency.

THG Nutrition’s growth-by-acquisition business model requires rapid deployment of standardized processes across new sites. Plex’s configurable, no-code platform enables THG’s digital team to quickly replicate solutions, ensuring consistency and efficiency as the company expands. The cloud-based nature of Plex also provides flexibility for divestitures, allowing THG to easily adapt its IT footprint as the business evolves.

“THG Nutrition is growing fast, and Plex is the right solution for that journey,” said Tom Forster, regional vice president, enterprise software sales, EMEA, Rockwell Automation. “THG selected Plex for its ability to unify manufacturing operations, deliver real-time insights, and support scalable growth. Our platform enables THG to standardize processes, reduce total cost of ownership, and maintain agility in a dynamic market.”

Key Features and Functionalities.

• Real-Time Dashboards: Plex provides out-of-the-box dashboards displaying key performance indicators, enabling THG Nutrition to identify bottlenecks and drive continuous improvement.
• Optimized Scheduling: The platform enforces compliance and prevents out-of-sequence production, reducing downtime and allergen-related cleaning requirements.
• Unified Data Platform: By consolidating legacy systems into Plex, THG Nutrition lowers IT costs and simplifies infrastructure, supporting long-term operational efficiency.
• Self-Sufficiency: Plex’s train-the-trainer approach empowers THG’s team to manage and deploy the platform independently, giving them control over their digital roadmap.

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@ROKAutomation @ROKAutoEMEA @thgplc #PAuto #Food #MES

Low-pressure range sensors.

The monitoring of everyday wearables, sports and mobile medical equipment is becoming increasingly widespread. The sensors and components in these often battery-powered devices have a high energy requirement which necessitates frequent battery recharging. One bright spot in this field is the new next-generation AMS 5935 low-power pressure sensor from AMSYS, which can accurately measure even extremely low pressures in the +/-125 pascal range.

AMSYS has now introduced sustainable sensors to its portfolio with the AMS 5935. The sensors are manufactured in Germany and feature an integrated I2C/SPI interface that outputs calibrated pressure and temperature readings at a very low current consumption (250 nA in sleep mode and 2 mA during measurements) and a supply voltage in the range of 1.7 V to 3.6 V.

Based on a piezoresistive pressure sensing element with a state-of-the-art signal processing ASIC in a ceramic DIL package, this board-mount sensor is suitable for PCB mounting. The AMS 5935 has a low total error over a temperature range of -25 to 85°C and an even smaller error at room temperature, making it a highly accurate, low-power pressure sensor.

The AMS 5935 pressure sensor is proving to be a sustainable component in mobile breathing aids and innovative devices whose runtime is to be increased using this intelligent, digital 18-bit pressure sensor.

AMSYS supplies this sensor for pressure ranges of +/- 1.25 mbar and for various differential, relative, bidirectional and absolute pressures from 0 to 2,000 mbar. The DIL version provides vertical pressure ports for tube connections. Alternatively, a space-saving manifold variant for mounting directly to a valve block using O-rings is available. Customer-specific adaptations are also possible. 3D data and a USB starter kit for quick results are available for prototype engineering. Furthermore, AMSYS’ team of consultants is always on hand to provide support where necessary.

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@PresseBox #AMSYS #Automation #Medical

Vision-based sports analytics, training, and player assessment in European Soccer.

Football is not only the world’s favorite pastime, but also a multi-billion-dollar industry. Individual players can command millions of dollars in salaries and transfer fees.

Coaches and scouts need to make the most informed personnel choices with so much at stake, then, keep their players on top condition. For the most advanced real-time empirical data, top European clubs rely on Anton Paar SportsTec skills.lab solutions. By combining complex algorithms with Teledyne FLIR cameras, skills.lab provides coaching staff with complete holistic views of a player's capabilities including detailed information to create individual training & recovery programs.

To cover the entire pitch and analyze details such as ball handling time, ball speeds & trajectories in real time with distances of up to 60 meters, the system uses 10GE Oryx cameras for analyzing data and Grasshopper3 cameras for both recording and interactive live streaming onto 360° projection screens.

This Case Study explains these fascinating systems and how they use machine vision to help football clubs evaluate and analyse players:
● How skills.lab solutions provide interactive empirical data in real-time
● How skills.lab uses a combination of sensing technologies
● Why Anton Paar Sportstec chose Teledyne FLIR for their high-quality systems

@flir @AntonPaar @mepaxIntPR #Sport #Europe

Uninterruptible power at World Soccer Fest.

Delta have recently implemented their uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems to provide enhanced reliability and energy efficiency to various mission critical applications in five of the football stadiums selected to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™.

Mr. Victor Cheng, head of Delta’s Information & Communications Technology Business Group (ICTBG), remarked, “Delta congratulates Russia for hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup™. We are extremely pleased to have our state-of-the-art UPS systems backing up the infrastructure that facilitates a thrilling, safe and eco-friendly environment in five of the stadiums that will host football fans from all over the planet during the world’s most relevant sporting event.”

Power capacity over three megawatts (MW) in Delta’s UPS systems now ensure sound power supply to football field and emergency lighting, broadcasting and data transmission, as well as security systems in these stadiums. The extensive use of Delta’s UPS portfolio by both government and private entities in Russia, and its superior technology features, such as leading AC-AC efficiency up to 96%, were crucial factors to achieve this major milestone.

Mr. Marat Fayrushin, General Manager of Delta Electronics in the Russia & the CIS region, said, “This breakthrough is cemented by our credentials in Russia, where Delta’s UPS systems and our partners’ professional services enable higher energy efficiency and steady operations in data centres and other mission critical applications in government entities, financial institutions, pharmaceutical companies and universities.”

Within the five football stadiums, over 1.2 MW power capacity of Delta’s UPS systems support football field and emergency lighting, more than 1.5 MW sustain key infrastructure such as common area lighting and fire protection systems, and approximately 300 kW support surveillance and data transmission equipment.

@DeltaEMEA #Pauto #Sport @FIFAWorldCup

Performance analysis for swimmers!

British Para-Swimming has worked hard to ensure that its top coaches and athletes have access to the best facilities, equipment and technology in the world. In 2015, the Manchester Aquatics Centre, the home of the British Para-Swimming National Performance Centre, was the first in the world to install the Kistler Performance Analysis System for Swimmers (PAS-S) which uses state of the art sensor technology and high speed video to record a swimmer’s starts, turns and relay changeovers in minute detail, under and on the surface.

As with many sports, performance improvement in para-swimming is achieved by small increments, rather than major advances. In the search for these small improvements, Britain’s Para-Swimmers benefit from the application of technology to the analysis of minute elements of performance. The PAS-S supplies the objective data, such as the take-off force at the start, which can be passed on to the athletes immediately and optimized during the training session.

“The Kistler system is a world-leading piece of analysis kit that captures metrics of an athlete’s starts, turns and finishes and is the only piece of kit of its kind in the world,” says Chris Furber, National Performance Director. This is why he believes that the Kistler PAS-S is the world's top performance analysis kit: simple and at the same time effective to use. In view of the increasing competition in Para-Swimming, this results in some crucial advantages.

British Para-Swimming is not resting on its laurels but is committed to building on past success at the new Para-Swimming World Series which began in Copenhagen in March 2017. This will provide opportunities for Para-Swimmers to compete in the series of five international events leading up to the World Para Swimming World Championships 2017 in Mexico City; the ideal preparation for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

#Kistler #Sport @britishswimming @ParalympicsGB

Who's for tennis! Cool technology at Wimbledon!

When the sun comes out on a rainy Wimbledon match day, the roof over Centre Court can be retracted, but only after the floodlights have cooled down sufficiently. This is a safety requirement as well as an aesthetic one, as the 1,000 W floodlights are mounted directly on the roof beams and the fabric comes close to this heat source when the roof is retracted.

User-friendly and highly

accurate  temperature 

measurement kit

To check how soon the lights reach the critical temperature of 212° F (100° C) and the roof retract temperature, Galliford Try, the company that built the Centre Court for the All England Club, engaged the temperature profiling expert Datapaq.

On an out-of-season day, Datapaq engineer Kevin Stephens performed a measurement run with three thermocouples mounted above and close to two lights. Connected to the sensors via 33-foot (10-meter) trailing cables, a Q18-type data logger captured the temperature profiles with a 2 s sampling rate. Using a notebook and Datapaq's specialized Insight software, Stephens read out and analyzed the data, marking events such as "lights switched off" or "sensor moved." The test turned out to prove that the prescribed half-hour wait after the lights are switched off is actually necessary for safe operation.

Eugene McCormick, Senior Project Manager at Galliford Try, notes, "We now have precise radiant heat temperature data. We will utilise this information when designing the roof for No.1 Court." Datapaq supplied the full report, showing the temperature curves of all sensors over two and a half hours, during which the flood lights were on for nearly two hours and then switched off to cool down.

Scrum mechanics study leads to rule changes by International Rugby Board!

As the entire island of Ireland prays for a favourable result in Paris for Brian O'Driscoll's last, and record breaking, appearance in the green jersey this story comes to us from National Instruments.

The man! The legend!

A three-year research project, completed by the Rugby Science Group at Bath University and funded by the International Rugby Board (IRB), has contributed to recent changes in the law of scrummaging, with a new ‘crouch, bind, set' engagement sequence. Data collected from cameras, player mounted pressure sensors and accelerometers, using National Instruments CompactRIO, show that this new engagement sequence reduces initial scrum forces by 25%, making scrummaging safer and less prone to collapsing with time-consuming restarts.

With a view to establishing safer engagement techniques, the IRB selected Bath University research team to investigate the forces and motion of scrum mechanics in order to determine the causes of injuries suffered throughout the sport. As a result, the findings supported the decision to change the laws of scrummaging and create the new engagement sequence which has now been implemented across all National and International rugby competitions, including the Rugby World Cup and European Six Nations Championship.

IRB Chief Executive Brett Gosper commented: "The feedback that we have been getting from coaches and players around the world is that this is a positive change that enhances player welfare and scrum stability”.

Using NI LabVIEW software, NI CompactRIO platform and the latest in scrum machine technology to acquire accurate synchronised measurements during live scrummaging, the University team tested and examined the physical demands on players in rugby teams, across playing levels from school age to International level.

The combination of LabVIEW Real-Time software and CompactRIO hardware proved ideal for this application because it offered deterministic triggering control across multiple devices, simulating both training and real-match conditions. The consistent data collection and full analysis of force, acceleration and movement patterns formed a quantitative basis for the new, improved law amendments.

Feeling the heat for charity!

A team of keen runners from VEGA UK went to Germany as one of 4 British entries to compete in the WIKA relay marathon on July 26th with over 160 teams involved. Each team of 7 runners completed a 6km (3.75m) cross country course, up hill and down dale. This year the temperature was the biggest challenge, it got up to 40°C and many competitors certainly felt the heat!

As the first time of competition for VEGA UK, whilst the overall result wasn't what they hoped for, the fund raising was superb - with staff, family and friends donating over £600. They certainly hope to return and improve on it next year! Fellow competitors, JWF Instrumentation in Glasgow, who were the fastest of the UK representatives, have agreed to match the amount raised for the national Anthony Nolan Trust and a local children’s hospice charity too!

So, following a very enjoyable weekend, the VEGA UK team would like to thank all the organisers at WIKA, colleagues in VEGA Germany, fellow competitors and donators for all their help in making the event happen, support and raising money for Charity.