A sports equipment borrowing management method based on the internet of things

Abstract

The application relates to the field of computer and biometric recognition technology, and discloses a sports equipment borrowing management method based on an Internet of Things. The method comprises the following steps: user identity authentication and establishment of a unique identifier; a built-in motion metering unit of equipment collects motion characteristic parameters; a local edge computing unit carries out differential privacy disturbance processing on the parameters to generate an irreversible anonymous achievement digest; a central server constructs a dynamic community ranking list based on the anonymous achievements of all users and pushes multi-level incentive information; and active users can obtain equipment upgrading or time length extension permission. Under the premise of guaranteeing that original health data does not leave the equipment, the application effectively improves user activity and borrowing stickiness through an anonymized achievement and community incentive mechanism.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention belongs to the field of computer and biometric identification technology, specifically relating to a method for managing the borrowing of sports equipment based on the Internet of Things. Background Technology

[0002] With the deepening of the national fitness strategy and the accelerated development of smart sports, IoT-based sports equipment rental management systems are widely used in communities, schools, and public fitness venues. These systems typically rely on smart locks, identification terminals, and cloud management platforms to achieve basic functions such as remote unlocking of equipment, usage time tracking, and return confirmation, improving equipment circulation efficiency and management transparency. However, existing systems mostly focus on the control logic of the "equipment," treating users as one-time or occasional service recipients, lacking in-depth consideration of user motivations and long-term participation intentions. This results in systems that, while possessing efficient rental capabilities, struggle to form a continuously active sports ecosystem.

[0003] Sports equipment borrowing management is gradually evolving from simple equipment scheduling to user incentives and health promotion. This direction aims to stimulate users' willingness to reuse equipment through data-driven methods, with its core being the construction of a user-centric positive feedback mechanism. Ideally, the system should be able to sense the dynamic changes in individual athletic performance and provide personalized incentives accordingly, thereby transforming a single borrowing behavior into a catalyst for the formation of long-term healthy habits.

[0004] However, achieving this goal faces the following problems: users' high sensitivity to their personal physiological data makes them unwilling to actively share key health indicators such as heart rate and recovery rate; even if the data is collected, existing systems lack credible, secure, and incentivizing data application paradigms, making it difficult to transform private data into social value or recognition of honor.

[0005] Existing sports equipment management systems generally suffer from limited functionality and shallow interaction. These systems merely handle the physical borrowing of equipment, lacking any incentive loops to encourage user return visits or continued use, resulting in low user engagement and fluctuating equipment usage frequency. While some high-end devices can collect exercise physiological data, the lack of effective anonymization and encryption mechanisms raises concerns about data leakage, preventing valuable behavioral data from being used to build a scientific incentive system. Even attempts to introduce leaderboards or point-based rewards often rely on horizontal comparisons of absolute exercise volume, ignoring individual baseline differences and easily leading to ineffective competition, failing to accurately reflect health improvement outcomes.

[0006] The aforementioned shortcomings limit the effectiveness of existing systems in promoting scientific fitness for all and building sustainable sports communities. There is an urgent need for a new method for managing the borrowing of sports equipment that can both protect user privacy and generate virtual honor incentives based on credible physiological progress indicators. Summary of the Invention

[0007] This invention provides an Internet of Things (IoT)-based method for managing the borrowing of sports equipment, aiming to solve the technical problems of low user stickiness, lack of motivation for continued use, and the inability to effectively use personal health data for social incentives due to privacy concerns in existing sports equipment borrowing systems. This invention constructs a closed-loop management system that integrates equipment borrowing behavior, anonymized athletic achievements, and group incentive mechanisms, achieving effective stimulation and maintenance of user activity without acquiring raw health data.

[0008] This invention provides a sports equipment borrowing and management method based on the Internet of Things, comprising: When a user initiates a request to borrow sports equipment, the user's identity is verified and a unique user identifier is established through the identity authentication module. In response to a successful borrowing event, the built-in motion measurement unit of the equipment is activated to collect motion characteristic parameters during this use, including exercise duration, exercise intensity level, and equipment usage frequency. When returning the equipment, the motion feature parameters are processed by differential privacy perturbation via the local edge computing unit to generate an irreversible anonymous achievement summary. The anonymous achievement summary is uploaded to the central management server and logically bound to the unique user identifier; The central management server constructs a dynamic community leaderboard based on the anonymous achievement summaries of all users. The dynamic community leaderboard groups users according to a preset time window and sorts them according to the aggregation value of the anonymous achievement summaries within the group. Push incentive information related to the leaderboard of the user's community to the user terminal. The incentive information includes ranking change prompts, virtual badge grant notifications and priority permission prompts for the next borrowing. When a user initiates a borrowing request again, if their historical anonymous achievement summary meets the preset activity threshold, the user will be automatically granted equipment upgrade borrowing permission or the single borrowing duration will be extended.

[0009] Preferably, when a user initiates a request to borrow sports equipment, the user's identity is verified and a unique user identifier is established through an identity authentication module, including: The user terminal generates a one-time public-private key pair, submits the public key to the central management server, and keeps the private key locally for subsequent data signing; The central management server verifies the legitimacy of the user's identity by validating the signature and assigns a temporary session token as the unique user identifier for this borrowing process.

[0010] Preferably, in response to a successful borrowing event, the device's built-in motion measurement unit is activated to collect motion characteristic parameters during this use, including: The three-axis accelerometer collects acceleration signals of the equipment in three orthogonal directions in space at a sampling frequency of 100 Hz per second, the gyroscope collects angular velocity signals synchronously, and the timer records the complete time interval from unlocking to locking of the equipment. The exercise intensity level is determined by calculating the combined energy value of the acceleration signal and the angular velocity signal. The combined energy value is equal to the weighted average of the sum of squares of the acceleration signal and the sum of squares of the angular velocity signal per unit time. The weighting coefficient is preset according to the equipment type. When the combined energy value is greater than the first threshold, it is judged as high-intensity use; when it is between the first threshold and the second threshold, it is judged as medium-intensity use; and when it is less than the second threshold, it is judged as low-intensity use.

[0011] Preferably, when returning the equipment, the motion feature parameters are processed by a local edge computing unit using differential privacy perturbation to generate an irreversible anonymous achievement summary, including: The original motion feature parameters are mapped to a predefined discrete achievement level range, which includes four levels: bronze, silver, gold, and diamond, with each level corresponding to a numerical range. Based on the mapped achievement level, noise is added using the Laplace mechanism. The noise scale parameter is dynamically adjusted according to the current user group size; the larger the group size, the smaller the noise scale. The achievement level with added noise is converted into an irreversible hash digest. The hash digest is generated using the national cryptographic SM3 algorithm. The input is the concatenation of the achievement level string and a random salt value. The random salt value is generated by the security chip at the device end and destroyed immediately during each return operation.

[0012] Preferably, the central management server constructs a dynamic community leaderboard based on anonymous achievement summaries of all users, including: All users are initially grouped based on the interest tags they filled in during registration. The interest tags include four categories: ball sports, track and field, strength training, and aerobic fitness. At midnight of each natural week, the aggregated value of each user's anonymous achievement summary over the past 7 days is recalculated. The aggregated value is equal to the sum of the level scores corresponding to the daily anonymous achievement summary. Within each interest tag group, users are sorted from highest to lowest aggregation value to generate a weekly community leaderboard; If a user does not generate any borrowing records within two consecutive periods, they will be temporarily removed from the leaderboard until they generate another valid borrowing activity.

[0013] Preferably, incentive information related to the leaderboard of the user's community is pushed to the user's terminal, including: A ranking change notification is triggered when a user's ranking in the community leaderboard improves by more than 5 places compared to last week. When a user accumulates 10 anonymous achievement summaries of the same level, a virtual badge grant notification is triggered. The virtual badge is stored in the secure storage area of ​​the user's terminal, and only the badge icon and the grant date are displayed. It does not contain any information that can be traced back to the original exercise data. When a user's historical activity score is greater than a preset threshold, priority will be automatically granted in their next borrowing request. This priority means that when equipment inventory is tight, the system will reserve the equipment for them for 30 minutes.

[0014] Preferably, when a user initiates a borrowing request again, if their historical anonymous achievement summary meets a preset activity threshold, then the user is automatically granted equipment upgrade borrowing permission or the single borrowing duration is extended, including: For high-value equipment such as smart treadmills and rowing machines, the activity threshold is set to at least 15 valid borrowings in the past 30 days, with at least 5 of them reaching the gold or diamond achievement level. For common equipment such as jump ropes and dumbbells, the activity threshold is set to at least 8 valid borrowings within the past 14 days with no overdue returns. Equipment upgrade borrowing privileges include allowing the borrowing of higher-specification models of equipment or a combination of multiple equipment, with the maximum extension of a single borrowing period being 50% of the standard duration.

[0015] Preferably, the motion measurement unit built into the device enters a low-power mode when the device is idle, maintaining only the timer operation; When the device is detected to be unlocked, the three-axis accelerometer and gyroscope are immediately activated and motion data is recorded. After the equipment is returned and locked, the motion measurement unit temporarily stores the collected raw data in local non-volatile memory. Once the network connection is restored, the local edge computing unit completes differential privacy perturbation processing and uploads an anonymous achievement summary. If the network interruption lasts for more than 24 hours, the original motion data stored locally will be automatically deleted, and only the generated anonymous achievement summary will be retained for subsequent uploads.

[0016] Preferably, the central management server periodically performs statistical analysis on the distribution characteristics of anonymous achievement summaries.

[0017] Preferably, after receiving the incentive information, the user terminal can selectively share the virtual badge to a social platform. The shared content only includes the badge icon, the date of award, and a preset general incentive statement, and does not contain any personal identification information, specific sports data, or community ranking information. After receiving the shared content, the social platform cannot reverse-engineer any of the user's original health or behavioral data.

[0018] Compared with the prior art, the beneficial effects of the present invention are as follows: 1. This invention achieves a secure processing mechanism that ensures raw health data does not leave the device by integrating exercise measurement and local edge computing capabilities into sports equipment.

[0019] 2. By utilizing differential privacy perturbation and irreversible hash digest technology, sensitive sports data is transformed into an unrecoverable anonymous achievement digest, fundamentally solving the risk of leakage of personal health data privacy.

[0020] 3. A dynamic community leaderboard and multi-level incentive system with anonymous achievement summaries as the core were constructed, transforming the simple act of borrowing equipment into a continuous interactive process with social attributes and achievement feedback.

[0021] 4. Users can obtain ranking incentives, virtual badges, and borrowing privileges without exposing any real health information, thereby significantly improving user stickiness and activity.

[0022] 5. The system dynamically adjusts the achievement level judgment threshold and activity threshold to ensure the long-term effectiveness and fairness of the incentive mechanism, avoiding the user fatigue problem caused by the rigid rules of traditional points systems.

[0023] 6. Under the premise of ensuring data security, the entire solution has realized a paradigm shift in sports equipment management from passive rental to proactive incentives. Attached Figure Description

[0024] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the overall technical solution architecture of the present invention; Figure 2 This is a schematic diagram illustrating the core principle framework of anonymous achievement summary generation and differential privacy perturbation processing in this invention; Figure 3 This is a logical flowchart of the construction of dynamic community ranking and multi-level incentive information push in this invention; Figure 4 This is a logical flowchart of the user authentication and equipment borrowing permission dynamic granting in this invention; Figure 5 This is a schematic diagram of the multi-level interaction relationship and data flow of motion feature parameter acquisition, processing and uploading in this invention; Figure 6 This is a logical framework diagram of the collaborative work and state switching between the device end, the edge computing unit and the central management server in this invention. Detailed Implementation

[0025] refer to Figures 1 to 6This invention provides a method for managing the borrowing of sports equipment based on the Internet of Things (IoT). Its core lies in collecting exercise data and performing local privacy protection processing at the equipment end to generate irreversible anonymous achievement summaries. Based on these summaries, a dynamic community incentive mechanism is constructed, thereby enhancing user stickiness and motivation for continued use without obtaining the user's original health data. The specific embodiments of this invention are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0026] When a user initiates a request to borrow sports equipment, the system first verifies the user's identity and establishes a unique user identifier through the identity authentication module. This authentication module uses an asymmetric encryption algorithm to perform the identity verification process. Each time a borrowing request is initiated, the user terminal generates a one-time public-private key pair in real time. The public key is submitted to the central management server, while the private key is strictly stored locally on the user terminal for subsequent digital signatures of critical operation data. After receiving the public key, the central management server returns a challenge random number to the user terminal.

[0027] The user terminal uses its local private key to sign the challenge random number and sends the signature back to the central management server. The central management server verifies the signature using the received public key. If the verification is successful, the user's identity is confirmed as legitimate, and a temporary session token is assigned to them. This temporary session token serves as the user's unique identifier in this borrowing process and is valid only within the current borrowing period. It expires after the borrowing period ends, ensuring that user identity information is not permanently stored in the system.

[0028] In response to a successful borrowing event, the equipment's built-in motion measurement unit is activated and begins collecting motion characteristic parameters during this use. The motion measurement unit is integrated within the sports equipment and includes a three-axis accelerometer, a gyroscope, and a high-precision timer.

[0029] A three-axis accelerometer continuously collects linear acceleration signals from the equipment in three orthogonal directions in space at a fixed sampling frequency of 100 Hz; a gyroscope synchronously collects angular velocity signals around the three axes at the same frequency; and a timer precisely records the complete time interval from the moment the equipment's physical locking mechanism unlocks to the moment it relocks. This complete time interval is the effective exercise duration for this borrowing. The exercise intensity level is determined based on the combined energy value of the acceleration and angular velocity signals. The formula for calculating the combined energy value is as follows: ; Indicates the combined energy value. For sample point index, The total number of sampling points. , , These are the three-axis acceleration components. , , These are the three-axis angular velocity components. This is a weighting coefficient, whose value is preset according to the equipment type and fixed in the equipment firmware.

[0030] For jump rope equipment The value is set to 0.7, emphasizing acceleration as the primary factor; for rowing machines and similar equipment, The value is set to 0.4, which focuses more on angular velocity changes. When the calculated combined energy value exceeds the first threshold... When the combined energy value is between the first threshold and the threshold value, it is considered high-intensity use; when the combined energy value is between the first threshold value and the threshold value, it is considered high-intensity use. With the second threshold When the combined energy value is between these thresholds, it is determined to be of medium intensity; when the combined energy value is less than the second threshold... When this occurs, it is determined to be low-intensity use. The first and second thresholds are also preset according to the equipment type and stored in the equipment's local configuration table.

[0031] After the user returns the equipment and triggers the locking operation, the motion measurement unit temporarily stores the original motion characteristic parameters collected this time—including motion duration, motion intensity level, and the frequency of equipment use corresponding to this borrowing (accumulated by the equipment's internal counter)—in local non-volatile memory.

[0032] Subsequently, the local edge computing unit is activated to perform differential privacy perturbation processing on the original parameters to generate an irreversible anonymized achievement summary. The process consists of three mandatory sub-steps.

[0033] The first step is to map the original motion feature parameters to a predefined discrete achievement level range. This discrete achievement level range is divided into four levels: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Diamond, each corresponding to a comprehensive score range. The comprehensive score is determined by both the exercise duration and the exercise intensity level: low intensity scores 1 point per minute, medium intensity scores 2 points per minute, and high intensity scores 3 points per minute; a total score of 0 to 30 points is Bronze, 31 to 60 points is Silver, 61 to 90 points is Gold, and 91 points and above is Diamond.

[0034] The second step involves adding noise using the Laplace mechanism based on the mapped achievement levels. (Noise scale parameters are listed below.) Based on the current size of the registered user group Dynamic adjustment, following the formula , For sensitivity, it is fixed at one here. Set to privacy budget The larger the group size, The larger the noise scale The smaller the value, the lower the degree of disturbance, ensuring the accuracy of the rankings for large groups.

[0035] The third step involves normalizing achievement results that might have crossed levels after noise was added back to the most recent valid level. This valid level string is then concatenated with a 16-byte random salt value generated in real-time by the device's security chip. This concatenation is then input into the national cryptographic SM3 hash algorithm to generate a 256-bit hash digest. This 16-byte random salt value is immediately removed from memory after the hash calculation and is never stored, ensuring that the hashing process is irreversible and the original achievement level cannot be recovered from the digest.

[0036] The generated anonymous achievement summary is then uploaded to the central management server and logically bound to the temporary session token allocated in this borrowing process. Upon receiving the summary, the central management server immediately associates it with the user account history corresponding to the temporary session token and destroys the temporary session token, severing the direct link between this borrowing and the user's long-term identity. All historical anonymous achievement summaries are stored in encrypted form in the central management server's database, retaining only the level identifier and timestamp, and do not contain any information that could identify an individual or details of the original movement.

[0037] The central management server constructs a dynamic community leaderboard based on anonymous achievement summaries of all users. The construction process begins by grouping users according to their self-selected interest tags during initial registration. These interest tags are limited to four categories: ball sports, track and field, strength training, and aerobic fitness. Users can select multiple tags, but the system only uses their primary selected tag as the grouping basis. Subsequently, at midnight of each natural week, the system initiates a periodic recalculation task, iterating through the anonymous achievement summary records of all active users over the past seven consecutive days.

[0038] For each user, a weekly aggregate value is calculated, which is equal to the sum of the scores corresponding to the anonymous achievement summaries earned each day. Bronze level is worth 10 points, Silver level 20 points, Gold level 35 points, and Diamond level 50 points. Within each interest tag group, the system sorts all users from highest to lowest based on their weekly aggregate value, generating a community leaderboard for that week. If a user does not generate any valid equipment borrowing records within two consecutive full cycles (i.e., 14 days), the system marks their status as "inactive" and temporarily removes them from the current and subsequent leaderboards until they complete another valid borrowing and generate a new anonymous achievement summary, at which point they can re-enter the group ranking.

[0039] The central management server pushes relevant incentive information to user terminals based on the dynamic community ranking. The push of incentive information adopts a multi-level trigger mechanism, which includes three independent and mutually exclusive trigger conditions.

[0040] The first level is a ranking change notification: When the system detects that a user's ranking in the community leaderboard has improved by more than 5 places compared to last week, it immediately generates a push message containing a comparison of the old and new rankings.

[0041] The second level is the virtual badge grant notification: The system continuously tracks the number of times each user has accumulated anonymous achievement summaries of the same level. When the number reaches 10, the badge grant logic is triggered. The system writes a badge record to the user's terminal's secure storage area. The record only includes the badge icon identifier, grant date, and badge level name, and does not contain any fields traceable to the specific borrowing event or original data. After receiving the notification, the user's terminal can display the virtual badge on their personal achievement page.

[0042] The third level is the borrowing priority prompt: The system maintains a historical activity score for each user, calculated based on their borrowing frequency, achievement level distribution, and on-time return rate over the past 30 days. When this historical activity score exceeds a preset activity threshold set for their frequently used equipment types, the system generates a "priority reservation" message before the user initiates their next borrowing request. This borrowing priority takes effect when equipment inventory is low; the system will reserve the selected equipment for the user for 30 minutes, during which other users will be unable to borrow the selected equipment successfully.

[0043] When a user initiates a borrowing request again, the system queries their historical activity score in real time. If the score meets the activity threshold for the corresponding equipment type, the system automatically grants equipment upgrade borrowing privileges or extends the single borrowing duration. The activity threshold setting is equipment type dependent.

[0044] For high-value equipment, such as smart treadmills and rowing machines, the activity threshold is set as follows: at least 15 valid borrowings must be completed in the past 30 days, and at least 5 anonymous achievement summaries must be at the Gold or Diamond level.

[0045] For common equipment, such as jump ropes and dumbbells, the activity threshold is set as follows: at least 8 valid borrowings in the past 14 days, with no overdue returns.

[0046] The equipment upgrade borrowing privilege specifically allows users to borrow higher-spec models of the same type of equipment, such as upgrading from a basic treadmill to a higher-spec model with heart rate monitoring, or to borrow multiple pieces of equipment in combination, such as borrowing dumbbells and a yoga mat at the same time. The maximum extension of a single borrowing period is 50% of the standard borrowing period for that type of equipment, and there are no additional charges for the extended portion.

[0047] The device's built-in motion measurement unit automatically enters a low-power mode when the device is idle. In this mode, the three-axis accelerometer and gyroscope are completely powered off, and only the timer is maintained to operate at extremely low power to record the idle time.

[0048] When the equipment management node detects the unlock command issued by the central management server and successfully activates the physical locking mechanism, it immediately sends a wake-up signal to the motion measurement unit. Upon receiving the signal, the motion measurement unit completes sensor initialization within 10 milliseconds and begins collecting motion data at a preset frequency.

[0049] During the equipment return process, when the user operates the return interface and triggers the locking command, the equipment management node controls the locking mechanism to close and sends a stop acquisition signal to the motion measurement unit.

[0050] The motion measurement unit immediately stops data acquisition, packages the raw data of this session into local non-volatile memory, and sends a processing request to the local edge computing unit. If the device's connection to the network is normal at this time, the local edge computing unit immediately performs differential privacy perturbation processing and uploads an anonymous achievement summary.

[0051] If the network is interrupted, the system will suspend the processing task and start a 24-hour countdown. If the network connection is not restored by the end of the countdown, the system will automatically erase the original motion data stored locally, retaining only the generated anonymous achievement summary (if it has already been generated), and upload the summary once the network is restored. This mechanism ensures that original sensitive data is not retained due to device failure or prolonged offline status.

[0052] The central management server periodically performs statistical analysis on the distribution characteristics of anonymous achievement summaries for various types of equipment. The system performs a distribution balance check weekly, calculating the percentage of diamond-level and bronze-level achievements for each type of equipment among all users. If the percentage of diamond-level achievements for a certain type of equipment is found to be greater than 40% for two consecutive weeks, or the percentage of bronze-level achievements is found to be greater than 60% for two consecutive weeks, the achievement level assessment threshold for that type of equipment is deemed unbalanced.

[0053] The system then initiates an adaptive threshold adjustment procedure: if the proportion of diamonds is too high, the first threshold is appropriately increased. With the second threshold If the proportion of bronze-level users is too high, the two thresholds will be appropriately lowered. The adjustment will follow a preset step size, with each adjustment being less than 5% of the original threshold to avoid drastic fluctuations in the leaderboard. The adjusted thresholds will be distributed to all devices of this type via firmware updates to ensure that the achievement judgment of subsequent borrowing behaviors returns to equilibrium, maintaining the competitive fairness and incentive effectiveness of the community leaderboard.

[0054] After receiving the virtual badge award notification, the user terminal provides a social sharing interface. Users can choose to share the badge to external social platforms. The shared content is strictly limited to three items: the badge icon, the award date, and a general motivational statement randomly selected from a preset statement library, such as "Persistence leads to victory" or "Every effort is worth remembering."

[0055] The shared content will absolutely not contain user nicknames, real names, community rankings, specific sports data, equipment types, or any information that can be cross-referenced with other data to deduce user identity or behavioral patterns.

[0056] After receiving shared content, social platforms can only display it as static images and text. They cannot use any technical means to reverse-analyze the user's original health data or borrow historical data, thus completely blocking the path of privacy leakage while opening up social incentives.

[0057] The implementation of the above method relies on a collaborative hardware and software system. This system includes an identity authentication module, a motion measurement unit, a local edge computing unit, a central management server, user terminals, and equipment management nodes.

[0058] The identity authentication module is deployed between the user terminal and the central management server and is responsible for executing the asymmetric encryption verification process.

[0059] The motion measurement unit is physically integrated inside each piece of sports equipment. It consists of a three-axis accelerometer, a gyroscope, a timer, and a local storage chip, and is responsible for the collection and temporary storage of raw motion data.

[0060] The local edge computing unit is integrated on the main control board of the device and includes a dedicated security coprocessor for performing discrete level mapping, Laplace noise addition, and SM3 hash operations.

[0061] The central management server is a distributed service cluster deployed in the cloud, responsible for user management, summary storage, leaderboard calculation, incentive strategy execution, and dynamic threshold adjustment.

[0062] The user terminal is a smartphone or tablet owned by the user, running a dedicated application that provides a user interface, achievement display, and message receiving functions.

[0063] The equipment management node is a gateway device deployed at the equipment storage point. It is responsible for communicating with the central management server, controlling the physical locking mechanism of the equipment, and forwarding equipment status change events.

[0064] The components interact with each other through an encrypted communication protocol to ensure the security and reliability of the entire borrowing, metering, and incentive closed loop.

[0065] It should be noted that, in this document, relational terms such as "first" and "second" are used only to distinguish one entity or operation from another, and do not necessarily require or imply any such actual relationship or order between these entities or operations. Furthermore, the terms "comprising," "including," or any other variations thereof are intended to cover non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements includes not only those elements but also other elements not expressly listed, or elements inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus.

[0066] Although embodiments of the invention have been shown and described, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes, modifications, substitutions and alterations can be made to these embodiments without departing from the principles and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined by the appended claims and their equivalents.

Claims

1. A method for managing the borrowing of sports equipment based on the Internet of Things, characterized in that, include: When a user initiates a request to borrow sports equipment, the user's identity is verified and a unique user identifier is established through the identity authentication module. In response to a successful borrowing event, the built-in motion measurement unit of the equipment is activated to collect motion characteristic parameters during this use, including exercise duration, exercise intensity level, and equipment usage frequency. When returning the equipment, the motion feature parameters are processed by differential privacy perturbation via the local edge computing unit to generate an irreversible anonymous achievement summary. The anonymous achievement summary is uploaded to the central management server and logically bound to the unique user identifier; The central management server constructs a dynamic community leaderboard based on the anonymous achievement summaries of all users. The dynamic community leaderboard groups users according to a preset time window and sorts them according to the aggregation value of the anonymous achievement summaries within the group. Push incentive information related to the leaderboard of the user's community to the user terminal. The incentive information includes ranking change prompts, virtual badge grant notifications and priority permission prompts for the next borrowing. When a user initiates a borrowing request again, if their historical anonymous achievement summary meets the preset activity threshold, the user will be automatically granted equipment upgrade borrowing permission or the single borrowing duration will be extended.

2. The method for managing the borrowing of sports equipment based on the Internet of Things according to claim 1, characterized in that, When a user initiates a request to borrow sports equipment, the user's identity is verified through the identity authentication module, and a unique user identifier is established, including: The user terminal generates a one-time public-private key pair, submits the public key to the central management server, and keeps the private key locally for subsequent data signing; The central management server verifies the legitimacy of the user's identity by validating the signature and assigns a temporary session token as the unique user identifier for this borrowing process.

3. The sports equipment borrowing management method based on the Internet of Things according to claim 2, characterized in that, In response to a successful borrowing event, the device's built-in motion measurement unit is activated to collect motion characteristic parameters during this use, including: The three-axis accelerometer collects acceleration signals of the equipment in three orthogonal directions in space at a sampling frequency of 100 Hz per second, the gyroscope collects angular velocity signals synchronously, and the timer records the complete time interval from unlocking to locking of the equipment. The exercise intensity level is determined by calculating the combined energy value of the acceleration signal and the angular velocity signal. The combined energy value is equal to the weighted average of the sum of squares of the acceleration signal and the sum of squares of the angular velocity signal per unit time. The weighting coefficient is preset according to the equipment type. When the combined energy value is greater than the first threshold, it is judged as high-intensity use; when it is between the first threshold and the second threshold, it is judged as medium-intensity use; and when it is less than the second threshold, it is judged as low-intensity use.

4. The sports equipment borrowing and management method based on the Internet of Things according to claim 3, characterized in that, Upon returning the equipment, the motion characteristic parameters are processed by a local edge computing unit using differential privacy perturbation to generate an irreversible anonymous achievement summary, including: The original motion feature parameters are mapped to a predefined discrete achievement level range, which includes four levels: bronze, silver, gold, and diamond, with each level corresponding to a numerical range. Based on the mapped achievement level, noise is added using the Laplace mechanism. The noise scale parameter is dynamically adjusted according to the current user group size; the larger the group size, the smaller the noise scale. The achievement level with added noise is converted into an irreversible hash digest. The hash digest is generated using the national cryptographic SM3 algorithm. The input is the concatenation of the achievement level string and a random salt value. The random salt value is generated by the security chip at the device end and destroyed immediately during each return operation.

5. The sports equipment borrowing and management method based on the Internet of Things according to claim 4, characterized in that, The central management server constructs a dynamic community leaderboard based on anonymous achievement summaries of all users, including: All users are initially grouped based on the interest tags they filled in during registration. The interest tags include four categories: ball sports, track and field, strength training, and aerobic fitness. At midnight of each natural week, the aggregated value of each user's anonymous achievement summary over the past 7 days is recalculated. The aggregated value is equal to the sum of the level scores corresponding to the daily anonymous achievement summary. Within each interest tag group, users are sorted from highest to lowest aggregation value to generate a weekly community leaderboard; If a user does not generate any borrowing records within two consecutive periods, they will be temporarily removed from the leaderboard until they generate another valid borrowing activity.

6. The sports equipment borrowing management method based on the Internet of Things according to claim 5, characterized in that, Push incentive information related to the leaderboard of the user's community to the user's terminal, including: A ranking change notification is triggered when a user's ranking in the community leaderboard improves by more than 5 places compared to last week. When a user accumulates 10 anonymous achievement summaries of the same level, a virtual badge grant notification is triggered. The virtual badge is stored in the secure storage area of ​​the user's terminal, and only the badge icon and the grant date are displayed. It does not contain any information that can be traced back to the original exercise data. When a user's historical activity score is greater than a preset threshold, priority will be automatically granted in their next borrowing request. This priority means that when equipment inventory is tight, the system will reserve the equipment for them for 30 minutes.

7. The sports equipment borrowing management method based on the Internet of Things according to claim 6, characterized in that, When a user initiates a borrowing request again, if their historical anonymous achievement summary meets a preset activity threshold, they will be automatically granted equipment upgrade borrowing privileges or the single borrowing duration will be extended, including: For high-value equipment such as smart treadmills and rowing machines, the activity threshold is set to at least 15 valid borrowings in the past 30 days and at least 5 of them reaching the gold or diamond achievement level. For common equipment such as jump ropes and dumbbells, the activity threshold is set to at least 8 valid borrowings within the past 14 days with no overdue returns. Equipment upgrade borrowing privileges include allowing the borrowing of higher-specification models of equipment or a combination of multiple equipment, with the maximum extension of a single borrowing period being 50% of the standard duration.

8. The sports equipment borrowing management method based on the Internet of Things according to claim 7, characterized in that, The motion measurement unit built into the device enters a low-power mode when the device is idle, maintaining only the timer operation; When the device is detected to be unlocked, the three-axis accelerometer and gyroscope are immediately activated and motion data is recorded. After the equipment is returned and locked, the motion measurement unit temporarily stores the collected raw data in local non-volatile memory. Once the network connection is restored, the local edge computing unit completes differential privacy perturbation processing and uploads an anonymous achievement summary. If the network interruption lasts for more than 24 hours, the original motion data stored locally will be automatically deleted, and only the generated anonymous achievement summary will be retained for subsequent uploads.

9. The method for managing the borrowing of sports equipment based on the Internet of Things according to claim 8, characterized in that, The central management server periodically performs statistical analysis on the distribution characteristics of anonymous achievement summaries.

10. The sports equipment borrowing management method based on the Internet of Things according to claim 9, characterized in that, After receiving the incentive information, the user terminal can selectively share the virtual badge to a social platform. The shared content only includes the badge icon, the date of award, and a preset general incentive statement. It does not contain any personal identification information, specific sports data, or community ranking information. After receiving the shared content, the social platform cannot reverse-engineer any of the user's original health or behavioral data.

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