Goal line technology – Volleyball

Around year 2010, the topic of using visual technology to assist referees in various sport matches was hot. There were some prototype systems, most of them optimized for tennis and football. The main blocker for adoption of this technology (apart from the philosophical discussions whether the “human element” of refereeing is lost or not) was its cost. It was horrendous, to the point that even now, such systems are only used in top competitions.

There are different types of systems, providing only video assistance (so called VAR – video assist referee) but also more sophisticated ones, analyzing the 3D position of the ball.

We were working on a proof-of-concept of a system (for volleyball matches) capable of providing 3D trajectory of the ball with a precision enough to distinguish whether the ball hit the ground or hit the hand placed on the ground. It was utilizing off-the-shelf, high speed cameras, image processing, photogrammetric tracking and 3D data analysis module. I was then leading a team of developers working on this project, also acting as a developer for some of the modules or algorithms, especially related to photogrammetry.

Currently, this project is being developed by a Polish startup, SmartTracking (https://smarttracking.pl) which received funding from The National Centre for Research and Development in Poland. I am not anymore involved in the project anymore, but I wish it a great success!

The images above are for illustration purposes only and come from SmartTracking website.