Technological Advancements

in Sports
Role Of Technology
Technology has gone a long way in
proving its mettle in sports.It has created a
niche for itself in every major sport on the
planet.Be it the outdoor sports like
soccer,tennis or cricket or their indoor
counterparts like snooker,badminton or
basketball,technology is used in each one
of them.

Hawk-Eye
Hawk-Eye is a computer system used in
cricket, tennis and other sports to visually
track the path of the ball and display a
record of its most statistically likely path as
a moving image
It is also used in some instances to predict
the future path of a ball in cricket


Time-Line
It was developed by engineers at Roke
Manor Research Limited of Romsey,
Hampshire in the UK, in 2001. A UK
patent was submitted by Dr Paul Hawkins
and David Sherry.
Later, the technology was spun off into a
separate company, Hawk-Eye Innovations
Ltd., as a joint venture with television
production company Sunset + Vine.
Use of Hawk-Eye
Mechanism
All Hawk-Eye systems are based on the
principles of triangulation using the visual
images and timing data provided by at
least four high-speed video cameras
located at different locations and angles
around the area of play.

Triangulation
It is the process of determining the
location of a point by measuring angles to
it from known points at either end of a
fixed baseline, rather than measuring
distances to the point directly. The point
can then be fixed as the third point of a
triangle with one known side and two
known angles.
The system rapidly processes the video
feeds by a high-speed video processor
and ball tracker.
A data store contains a predefined model
of the playing area and includes data on
the rules of the game.
Hawk-Eye in Analytics
In each frame sent from each camera, the
system identifies the group of pixels which
corresponds to the image of the ball. It
then calculates for each frame the 3D
position of the ball by comparing its
position on at least two of the physically
separate cameras at the same instant in
time
A succession of frames builds up a record
of the path along which the ball has
travelled. It also "predicts" the future flight
path of the ball and where it will interact
with any of the playing area features
already programmed into the database.
The system can also interpret these
interactions to decide infringements of the
rules of the game.
Hawk-Eye Camera
Hot-Spot
Hot Spot is an infra-red imaging system
used in cricket to determine whether the
ball has struck the batsman, bat or pad.
Hot Spot is new technology that requires
two infrared cameras on opposite sides of
the ground above the field of play that are
continuously recording an image.
With the use of this technology we can
help the batsman in knowing the truth that
the ball had stuck the pad and not the bat,
with the help of the white spot which is
produced on the pad.

LBW - inside edge or not?
Mechanism
The White Spot
Whenever we slap a person, we are
applying some force and at this instant the
heat is produced due to the friction that
occurs between the face and hands and if
we use the IR cameras we could easily
detect this.
Infra Red Image
Conclusion
Though there is an ongoing debate on the
feasibility of the use of technology in
sports,it has certainly provided man with a
useful tool to reduce human error and
increase performance and as far as its
scope is concerned,it is definitely here to
stay.

Bibliography
www.wikipedia.org
www.cricbuzz.com
www.espnstar.com
www.channel9.com