Interaction forces in climbing: cost-efficient complementation of a 6dof instrumentation

To comprehensively analyse interaction forces in climbing, a fully instrumented climbing route has been requested but only once been realised, probably due to financial burdens. Thus, the objective of this work was to elaborate the potential of a one-dimensional force sensor to analyse interaction forces. Based on experimental data gained with our 6 degrees of freedom (6dof) instrumentation, we simulated a 1dof instrumentation. Performance metrics were extracted from both instrumentations. An equivalence test of extracted metrics revealed that a 1dof instrumentation is sufficient to analyse interaction forces when a distinctive loading direction is present at the hold. Consequently, we developed a 2dof instrumentation avoiding an unpractical alignment to the loading direction in the plane of the wall. This 2dof instrumentation can now be used to cost efficiently complement the 6dof instrumentation, in particular, in terms of monitoring interaction forces at holds with a distinctive loading direction within the plane of the climbing wall, e.g. foot holds and crimps.