How artificial intelligence-powered balls are changing the game

Technology is expanding everywhere, even to one of the classical sports in humanity, Football. FIFA world cup 2022 is already finalized. However, one thing caught my attention—the most crucial thing in a game, the ball.

Adidas, the official match ball supplier for the FIFA World Cup since 1970, produces the Al Rihla ball. It means journey in Arabic and is inspired by the culture, architecture, and flag of Qatar. It contains too many evolved features like macro and micro-textured skin, surface debussing, and containing environmentally-friendly inks and adhesives.

Congratulations! As this blog follows the brevity principle(quality of being brief), you are at the second level!😊

Remarkably, it includes CRT-CORE, located in the center of the ball, which helps improve its speed, accuracy, and consistency. The device from KINEXON, a company that specializes in performance tracking for various sports, weighs 14 grams and actually houses two separate sensors operating simultaneously:

• An ultra-wideband sensor, which is better than GPS or Bluetooth for tracking precise positional data and can transmit data in real-time;
• An inertial measurement unit sensor, which is designed to detect nuanced movements of an object in space.

That means data, a lot of gathered data!

Wow, you are at the third level. Let’s play a game!😉 I bet you will read till the end.🌠 The show must go on!🤩

Combined with player position data and by applying artificial intelligence, the innovative connected ball technology contributes to FIFA’s semi-automated offside technology and offers Video Assistant Referees instantaneous information to help optimize decision-making. When the ball is kicked, headed, thrown, or even lightly touched, the system tracks it at 500 frames per second and sends the data in real-time to a local positioning system. This data is used in FIFA’s semi-automated offside technology and can be used by Video Assistant Referees to help make decisions. When the ball goes out of bounds, the system can automatically switch to tracking a new ball without human intervention.

It also includes various benefits for coaches and analysts to define tactics, athletic staff for getting performance data, club media to give the audience interesting stats about players, and more.

Considering all these advancements, there is still a way to go in AI interaction because it requires human involvement. However, the general trend shows in the future, a lot of measurements are going to change, as well as the decision-making process in Sports – AI collaboration.

Congratulations! You nailed it! I hope you find it useful. Have a pleasant day🌻

References:

• https://www.fifa.com/tournaments/mens/worldcup/qatar2022/media-releases/al-rihla-by-adidas-revealed-as-fifa-world-cup-qatar-2022-tm-official-match
• https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-world-cups-new-high-tech-ball-will-change-soccer-forever/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adidas_Al_Rihla
• https://www.soccerbible.com/performance/football-equipment/2022/07/adidas-2022-world-cup-ball-to-be-first-to-feature-connected-ball-technology/
• https://kinexon.com/technology/ball-tracking/