A cost-effective interactive platform for the management of a small scale lap-based jogging competition using low-frequency RFID technology

Abstract

There are many formats for arranging jogging and running events. One popular format allows participants to compete over a period of time to collect the most amount of laps. These types of competition are aimed towards making the participants more healthy by being active and engage in regular exercise. To motivate the participants, the runners with the most laps are usually rewarded for their effort. Traditionally most of these events are usually small local community events, in which there is little budget and manpower that could be allocated towards the management of the events. This makes investment on existing interactive ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio-frequency identification (RFID) race timing systems too expensive to be considered for these events. Due to the lack of cost-effective solution for the problem domain, this study proposes a cost-effective interactive platform that is based on low-frequency (LF) RFID devices. The proposed platforms helps manage the running events, log runner specifics, manages data through a centralized database, and shows participants' data such as lap times and total laps in real time. The proposed system was deployed at the Fit for Run event at Assumption University between January 23–February 28, 2017.