Development of a System Based on Force Load Cells for Measuring Vertical Jump Parameters

In various sport disciplines, the physical abilities of strength, endurance, speed, and flexibility are evaluated to improve athletes' performance through the assessment of vertical jump exercises. In this context, recording parameters such as flight time, jump height, and specific power is crucial for a quantitative assessment of vertical jumps. However, the technol-ogy required for this purpose is often expensive, limiting access for many athletes and coaches. This work presents, as a low-cost alternative, the development and evaluation of a prototype of a system based on four load cells and a microcontroller to assess vertical jump exercices. This system is designed to measure forces to identify the start and end of the vertical jump, and calculate the aforementioned parameters. In addition, the system allows the generation of a database of the measurements for offline evaluation of the vertical jumps performed by subjects. A protocol for reliability and usability evaluation was designed and conducted, involving physical evaluations of vertical jumps with thirty participants. Measurements of flight time (ms), jump height (cm), and specific power (W/kg) were compared with those obtained from a Optojump Next, which is used as the reference device. The results of the statistical analysis indicate a positive correlation of 0.7 for flight time, 0.9 for jump height, and 0.7 for specific power when comparing both systems. The mean score obtained through System Usability Scale (SUS) was 87.5, indicating good usability for the system. Thus, we believe that the developed system can be effectively used to support sport training based on vertical jump evaluation.