Treadmill, fitness device, control method of the same, and control module of the same

Abstract

A fitness apparatus includes: a body having a belt for supporting an exerciser; a driving motor for driving the belt; a motor driving portion for driving the driving motor; a display device installed in a predetermined area of the body to provide information to the exerciser; and a control portion for determining symbol display coordinates using an exerciser speed corresponding to a rotation speed of the driving motor, and outputting a symbol corresponding to the exerciser at the symbol display coordinates through the display device. According to the fitness apparatus of the present invention, an exerciser can control the symbol display coordinates of a symbol displayed on the display device, and thus various game functions can be implemented. Therefore, an exerciser can enjoy an exercise without easily feeling tedious.

Description

CLAIM FOR PRIORITY[0001]This application claims priority to Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0104222 filed on Oct. 16, 2007, Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0129436 filed on Dec. 12, 2007, Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0129438 filed on Dec. 12, 2007, Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0129439 filed on Dec. 12, 2007, Korean Patent Application No. 10-0136452 filed on Dec. 24, 2007, Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0136453 filed on Dec. 24, 2007, Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0136455 filed on Dec. 24, 2007, Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0136456 filed on Dec. 24, 2007, Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0136457 filed on Dec. 24, 2007, Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0136458 filed on Dec. 24, 2007, Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0136459 filed on Dec. 24, 2007, Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0136460 filed on Dec. 24, 2007, Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0136462 filed on Dec. 24, 2007, and Korean Patent Application No...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0027]It is another object of the present invention to provide a fitness apparatus with a game function that an exerciser can enjoy while exercising.

[0121]The treadmill according to the present invention pre-processes measured values of an exerciser's position and thus has an advantage of resolving a problem in that a speed of a belt can not be controlled due to measurement errors contained in measured values.

Problems solved by technology

However, a conventional fitness apparatus, such as a treadmill, simply displays on a display device only a speed change curve with respect to an exercise course stored in a storing portion of a fitness apparatus, i.e., a profile selected among speed profiles per time or displays terrain over an exercise course through computer graphic processing, and so there is a problem in that it is difficult to motivate an exerciser to complete the whole target exercise course.

Also, if an exerciser excises according to a selected profile, an exerciser easily feels tedious.

However, the above-mentioned technique can resolve a tedious feeling that an exerciser has when simply exercising according to a profile alone, but it can implement a simple running race but cannot provide a game function that can provide fun to an exerciser.

Therefore, such a conventional treadmill does not provide a good exercising experience to an exerciser and is also difficult to realize a natural feeling that an exerciser can have while walking or running on the ground.

The treadmill disclosed in Korean Patent No. 10-0398330 performs acceleration or deceleration when a position of the exerciser is within a certain range from the central region, but the treadmill cannot handle various situations such as quick deceleration when an exerciser desires to abruptly stop while running at a high speed.

In addition, when a quick deceleration occurs, an overload occurs in a motor driving portion, and the motor driving portion stops driving the motor to protect itself.

Thus, a conventional treadmill cannot execute a quick deceleration.

Also, since an abrupt deceleration during exercise can cause an exerciser to fall due to inertia and potential injury risks, a conventional treadmill has implemented a slow deceleration or a deceleration using a natural friction force.

Further, such a conventional treadmill cannot effectively implement various exercising patterns of an exerciser.

In order to improve an overall exercise experience and to cope with various exercising patterns of an exerciser, a treadmill needs to rapidly follow acceleration and deceleration of an exerciser, but a conventional treadmill cannot perform quick deceleration and thus cannot provide a satisfactory automatic speed control function.

Therefore, it is difficult to implement an automatic speed control function using only a technique for measuring an exerciser's position by an ultrasonic sensor in a treadmill.

In addition, measured values received from an ultrasonic sensor can be distorted due to various ambient noise, and undesired measured values, for example, a position value of an arm or a leg, may be obtained while an exerciser walks or runs.

Such signal distortion and undesired measured values make it difficult for a treadmill to automatically control a speed of a belt.

However, the above-described techniques using load sensors have a problem in that a cycle of a load that is applied to a load sensor depends on a speed of an exerciser, and a cycle of a load of when an exerciser runs at a highest speed is 2 or 3 times per second.

This makes it very difficult to smoothly control the belt speed.

Thus, it is difficult to accurately calculate a position of an upper body of an exerciser or the center of gravity.

In addition, the above-mentioned Korean Patent Publications have not mentioned a control method for coping with various exercising patterns of an exerciser, such as quick acceleration or quick deceleration, and so it is difficult to automatically control the belt speed only using a difference between an exerciser's position and a reference position in a manner that provides satisfactory automatic speed control.

Images