The Advanced Artificial Athlete is an evolution of the standard and established Artificial Athletes (EN 14808 and EN 14809). It has been developed to offer a simpler and more compact solution for measuring the properties of sports surfaces, including shock absorption, vertical deformation, and energy restitution. This makes it suitable for use on all types of sports surfaces, such as synthetic turf, polymeric, indoors, and natural turf.
After undergoing an extensive development program that included official round robin tests, LABOSPORT actively participated in the Triple A’s testing process. The results showed that the device performs with the required levels of accuracy and reproducibility. As a result, international sports federations have gained confidence in adopting it as their official measuring method.
Method Advantages
- Compliant with FIFA/WR test method for synthetic turf and natural turf
- Testing time reduced by over 50% when compared to traditional Artificial Athlete
- No need for deformation gauges
- No need for spring changes between Force Reduction and Deformation measurements
- Virtually no maintenance
- Reduced weight and size
Principles of Advanced Artificial Athlete
An accelerometer is installed in a falling mass to record its deceleration upon impact with the sports surface. To obtain the shock absorption value, the peak rate of deceleration during the impact is compared with a similar impact on concrete, with the resulting Force Reduction value being directly comparable to values obtained from the Traditional Berlin Artificial Athlete.
Deformation is calculated by double integration of the acceleration figures. In addition, a new property, Energy Restitution, can be calculated by comparing the velocities of the falling mass immediately before and after the impact with the surface.