Hawk-Eye is a computer system used in sports like cricket, tennis, and football to track the path of the ball using multiple high-speed cameras. It was developed in 2001 for cricket and first used in tennis in 2006. Hawk-Eye tracks the ball using cameras calibrated to a 3D coordinate system and predicts the most likely path using geometry algorithms. It provides data for decisions like line calls in tennis or lbw decisions in cricket with over 99% accuracy. While very effective, Hawk-Eye is also costly to implement and sometimes struggles with curved ball trajectories.
2. CONTENTS
What is Hawk-Eye?
HISTORY
Basic Components
WORKING
APPLICATION
Advantages
Disadvantages
Conclusion
References
3. What is Hawk-Eye?
Hawk-Eye is a complex computer system used
officially in various sports such as Cricket,
Tennis, Football, Badminton, Snooker etc. to
visually track the path of the ball and display
a record of its most likely path as a moving
image.
4. HISTORY
Hawk-Eye was developed in the United Kingdom at Roke
Manor Research Limited by Dr. Paul Hawkins. The system was
originally implemented in 2001 for television purposes in
cricket.
Later, the technology was turned into a separate company,
Hawk-eye Innovations Ltd.
The system was first used during a Test match between
Pakistan and England at Lords Cricket Ground , on 21 April
2001.
It was first used in tennis 2006 US open.
5. Basic Components
HAWKEYE system consists of two significant
parts:
1. Tracking System :
Camera and Speed gun
2. Video Replay System
6. Tracking System
It calculates the following information:-
1.The speed of the ball leaving the bowlers hand.
2. The swing of the ball from the bowlers hand to where the
ball pitched.
3.How much the ball bounced.
4.How much the ball deviated sideways off the wicket
7. Speed Gun
A speed gun measures the ball speed. It shoots a very
short burst of infra-red laser and receives it back same
as the RADAR works.
8. HAWKEYE CAMERA
The camera record the movement of ball at the rate
of more than 200 frames per second.
9. WORKING
1.Camera Calibration
The process is started with the Calibration of the
cameras .This is required to deal with the problem about
the non-uniform distance of the cameras from the
Ball.
2.Start Processing
These include a statistical generator, which is used to
produce statistics based on the data collected.
This data is crucial as it can help the ball detection algorithm to
predict the rough location of the ball in an image given the position
in the previous image .
8
Camera Calibration
Start Processing
Ball Recognition
Geometry Algorithm
3D Position of Ball
Track Of The Ball
Predicted Flight Of The
Ball
10. Ball Recognition
An algorithm is used to find the pixels corresponding to the
ball in the image obtained. The information is used to achieve
the size and shape of the ball.
A blob detection scheme is used to detect a round object in
the image.
Geometric Algorithm is used to look at multiple images and
then combine them cleverly to get the coordinates of a ball in
3D.
11. Principle of HAWKEYE
Triangular Method:
Triangulation is a process of determining the location of a
point by measuring angles to it from either end fixed at
baseline.
13. Tracking the ball at various instants
The images are taken by cameras at times t0, t1.....tn during the play of
a single ball.
Computation done at each time instant ti, 0 <= i <=n, we will get n
points say (xi , yi , zi) for 0 <= i <= 0.
Plot the n points.
14. Predicting the flight or path of the ball
There is a standard technique, used commonly in the field of
Computer Aided Geometric Design.
This allows us to draw a good approximation as required to
the original curve, passing through the given points.
It helps in judging the decision of LBW .
16. Wagon Wheels
The trajectories which the ball has taken after being hit by the
batsman are recorded in the system. This is used to generate
a graphic showing 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, and 6s all in different colours
for a batsman.
17. Pitch Maps
As shown above, the Pitch Map graphic uses information
about the position where the ball bounced on the pitch.
18. Other Sports
Tennis
Hawk-eye was first used in tennis in the year 2006( US open ).
In tennis Hawk-eye generates the impact of the ball whether
the ball is IN or OUT the line of tennis court.
There are appx. 8 to 10 high speed HAWKEYE camera at a
speed of more than 200 FPS/s for images, easy to capture the
tennis trajectories and placement of the data.
19. FOOTBALL
It is used in Football to judge whether it is goal or not.
Hawk-Eye install 7 cameras per goal.
Watch used by the Referee in Football also used
Hawk eye Principal.
Control software combines the information from all
cameras and is able to track the ball within the goal
area.
As soon as the system detects that the ball has
crossed the goal line, it instantaneously sends a signal
to the officials watch.
20. ADVANTAGES
Give a prediction as accurate as 99.99 percent.
Its a very effective system which works in real time.
Minimize the chances of human error in decision
making.
Help players to study their past games and improve.
21. DISADVANTAGES
The system is too costly.
The system needs complex arrangements.
Sometimes Hawk-Eye struggle with predicting
the curved trajectory of a cricket ball after
bouncing.
Sometimes it challenges umpires dignity.
22. CONCLUSION
After all the test that have been conducted on
this technology, it has always come out
successful and it promises to be a boon for the
world of sports and now it is upto the different
councils to decide whether to use this
technology or not.