Reinforcement Learning-Based Golf Swing Correction Framework Incorporating Temporal Rhythm and Kinematic Stability
Accurate golf swing correction requires modeling not only static pose deviations but also temporal rhythm and biomechanical stability throughout the swing sequence. Most existing pose-based approaches rely on frame-wise similarity and therefore fail to capture timing, velocity transitions, and coordinated joint dynamics. This study proposes a reinforcement learning-based framework that generates frame-level corrective motions by formulating swing correction as a sequential decision-making problem optimized via Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO). A multi-term reward function is designed to integrate geometric pose accuracy, incremental correction improvement, hip-centered stability, and temporal rhythm consistency measured using a Velocity-DTW metric. Experiments conducted with swing sequences from one professional and five amateur golfers demonstrate that the proposed method produces smoother and more temporally coherent corrections than static pose-based baselines. In particular, rhythm-aware rewards substantially improve the motion of highly dynamic joints, such as the wrists and shoulders, while preserving lower-body stability. Visual analyses further confirm that the corrected trajectories follow expert patterns in both spatial alignment and timing. These results indicate that explicitly incorporating temporal rhythm within a reinforcement learning framework is essential for realistic and effective swing correction. The proposed method provides a principled foundation for automated, expert-level coaching systems in golf and other dynamic sports requiring temporally coordinated whole-body motion.
Authors
- Jeongeun Byun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2563-4443)
- Young-Been Noh
- Kwang-Il Hwang
- Dong-Jun Lee
Institutions
- Incheon National University (KR)
- Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KR)
- Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KR)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Sensors
- Published
- 2026-01-07
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3390/s26020392
- Primary Topic
- Sports Dynamics and Biomechanics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00