tracking football with GPS
Dec 31, 2008 fitness, gps navigation, misc news
A team of researchers and students at Carnegie Mellon University are working on a project that focuses on developing new technologies that can assist referees in making calls during specific game situations in football.
Their current studies involve tracking a football using a GPS receiver chip – just like the ones in your vehicle – listening to satellites that are about 20,000KM up in the air. Their goal is to accurately determine a football’s 3D position in real time.
They literally place a whole circuit board, battery, and the receiver (Ublox Antrais LEA-4T, SiRF Star III) into a football.
And if you’ve ever used a GPS navigation system you’ll immediately think how this is possible considering these receivers can’t even figure out what side of the freeway you’re on at times; forget helping a referee when inches matter.
Well they made some improvements by switching from built-in patch antennas to helical antennas but their resolution is still around 30 feet. Oh, and their ball weighs 3.5 ounces over what NFL currently allows.
They’re also developing gloves with touch sensors that can wirelessly transmit data to a computer.
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January 5th, 2009 at 10:43 am
[...] bunch of forward- (forward pass-?) thinking researchers and students at Carnegie Mellon University are involved in a project that can pinpoint the exact path a thrown [...]
April 8th, 2009 at 6:09 am
Well, these are interesting thoughts. I think they are true. However, everything is
relative and ambiguous to my mind.
April 9th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
[...] diehard Steelers fans who are researchers and students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh are working on an invention that can trace the path of a football anywhere on the [...]
June 20th, 2009 at 5:41 am
It’s not often I find a really good football article online, most are the same ole’ thing just rehashed.
Thanks for posting something I could really sit down and read.
Dave
August 16th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Interesting idea, but currently available commercial GPS technology is very limiting with the 1/sec update rate and 10 meter accuracy.
I was looking for a similar capability for our control line stunt model airplanes, to track them against a theoretically ideal stunt pattern. Several people suggested GPS, but the same kind of limitations appeared.
Even with 5 or 10 per second update rates, the accuracy just isn’t good enough, we need about 1 ft or less.
Someday!
September 9th, 2009 at 11:28 am
[...] bunch of forward- (forward pass-?) thinking researchers and students at Carnegie Mellon University are involved in a project that can pinpoint the exact path a thrown football takes, along with its [...]
October 15th, 2009 at 11:02 am
HAHA. I came up with this idea a few years ago. some things to think about are weight of the football once the gps transmitter is attached to the ball, will the ball still spiral with the unbalanced weight? is it durable and reliable? I can’t believe someone is actually working on it. Should have gotten a patent when I could.