The rowing boat glides noiselessly down the river. Meadows and trees line the banks and the sky is blue. The oars make a splash every time they plunge into the water and the water resistance requires a considerable amount of strength from the rower. Suddenly, you hear the roar of the crowd spurring you on. You step up a gear in a final burst and start to glide faster through the water towards the finishing line.

The scene described was not out on Switzerland’s Limmat river in Zurich or the Rotsee in Luzerne, but rather in a laboratory on the ground floor of the Sensory Motor Systems Laboratory. There in the middle of the room is a rowing boat. The bow and the stern have been sawn off and the oars shortened. The boat is surrounded by three screens, onto which a virtual riverscape is projected. When the rower sits in the boat, the missing bow suddenly appears on the front screen and the extension of the oars becomes visible on the side screens.

Optimum training conditions

The research group from the Sensory-Motor Systems Lab headed by Professor Robert Riener has been working meticulously on the rowing simulator for nearly a year. The rowing boat is surrounded by a total of 112 speakers that play back splashes whenever the oars dip into the water and reproduce the crowd’s cheers. Ten cameras record the rower’s every movement and ropes connected to an electric motor are tied to the oars. When the rower plunges the oars into the water, the motor is activated and the sportsman feels the water resistance.

The simulator is supposed to guarantee as perfect a training session as possible. “The training conditions of our rowing simulator are very close to those on the water. Training with our simulator is far more effective than a rowing ergometer, which has certain limitations when it comes to helping you perfect your technique”, explains Peter Wolf, senior assistant at the Sensory Motor Systems Lab.

The rowing system takes crucial factors into consideration that do not exist otherwise on “dry land”. It can simulate competition situations with spectators and different wind conditions. Furthermore, it also gages physiological parameters such as breathing or heart rate and can correct any flaws in the sportsman’s strokes.

Tested by pros

In order to fine-tune the simulator to the needs of professional sportsmen and women, the development team tests it regularly on rowers. Their feedback enables the team, which is made up of movement scientists, computer scientists, electrical engineers and mechanical engineers, to optimize the simulator’s performance.

Currently, two doctoral students are primarily involved in the simulator’s further development. Mathias Wellner, a trained electrical engineer, is focusing on the rowing simulator’s graphics and sound system in his thesis while the mechanical engineer Joachim von Zitzewitz is refining the system’s haptics.

Warming up for Wimbledon in a virtual environment

If the simulator proves itself as a training tool, its commercialization is also conceivable to provide sportsmen and women all over the world with integrated indoor practice. However, it first has to reach market maturity: “We have to hone the simulator down to the essentials if it is to be offered at an affordable price”, says Peter Wolf.

The development team in the Sensory-Motor Systems Lab, however, will not be able to sit back and relax once the rowing simulator has been launched on the market. Far from it: the vision of extending the vision to other sports like tennis or golf is also on the cards. “Seeing that a person makes highly complex movements in these sports, we will need more than the two cable robots used for the rowing machine”, explains Zitzewitz regarding one of the more difficult aspects of his work. If the researchers are successful, the likes of Roger Federer could well be preparing for the Grand Slam tennis tournaments in the institute’s cellar in the not too distant future.