Centre staff
Dr Simon Goodwill
Senior sports engineer
Phone 0114 225 4435
Email s.r.goodwill@shu.ac.uk
Dr Simon Goodwill is a research engineer in sports engineering at Sheffield Hallam University. He completed his PhD at the University of Sheffield in 2003. The aim of his PhD was to model the impact between a tennis ball and racket, and he has since continued to be involved in many research projects with the International Tennis Federation. He has developed a range of customised software applications which link data acquisition hardware with camera systems.
Simon's recent projects include the development of software and hardware for interactive sport science exhibits, and the development of image processing techniques to track the motion of athletes in the field. He has worked extensively with elite level performance analysts, developing custom software packages to help them improve athlete performance.
Background
- Has been part of the organising and scientific committee for three international conferences.
- Published extensively in the field with over 40 publications.
Skills
- Software development in VB.NET, C# and MATLAB
- Aerodynamics
- Analytical modelling
- Automated image processing
- Practical applications of new consumer technologies
Research interests
- Novel systems to monitor/feedback the performance of elite athletes
- Interactive sports science exhibit equipment
- Physics of tennis
- Custom 3D motion analysis system to track sports equipment during game play situations
- Robust image processing algorithms for tracking athletes
Selected publications
Allen, T., Haake, S.J. and Goodwill, S.R. (2010) 'Effect of friction on tennis ball impacts', Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology, Part P.
Allen, T., Haake, S.J. and Goodwill, S.R. (2009) 'Comparison of a finite element model of a tennis racket to experimental data', Journal of Sports Engineering, Vol. 12 (2), pp 87-98.
Goodwill, S.R., Capel-Davis, J., Haake, S.J. and Miller, S. (2007) 'Ball spin generation by elite players during match play', Tennis Science and Technology, 3, pp 349-356 (Eds. S. Miller and J. Capel-Davis).
Goodwill, S.R., Chin, S.B. and Haake, S.J. (2004) Aerodynamics of spinning and non-spinning tennis balls. Jnl. of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, 92(11), 935-958.
Goodwill, S.R. and Haake, S.J. (2004) Modelling of tennis ball impacts on a rigid surface. Proceedings for the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, 218 (C), 1139-1153.
