SparkFun Forums

[WarrickF]

Hi All,

I'm building an application that tracks a squash ball on court.

I'm thinking of using radar, but I don't really have much experience with the technology.

Does anyone have any other suggestions on how I could track the position of a squash ball (which is moving really fast).

Thanks
Warrick

[evarobotics]

I'm sure you have thought about this - but the obvious answer is cameras. Same as Hawkeye in tennis.

Not a squash player myself but I believe you have good contrast between the ball and the color of the court. And the courts have colored walls which helps.

Do you want to track in 2D or 3D?

[leon_heller]

You need several cameras and a lot of processing power.

[evarobotics]

There's nothing new about object tracking with cameras. There's certainly a lot of literature on the subject and hardware has never been better. And processing is not as difficult as people think - there are embedded platforms that pull off extremely high speed image analysis. The hardest part about vision systems is always the environment, and I would think a squash court is as easy as you could get.

If you really wanted to get fancy you could implant an IR beacon in the ball which makes the image processing even easier.

Or if you don't mind spending some cash, get an IR filter or thermal camera and you could track the heat on the ball as it gets hit around!

[evarobotics]

Another idea while we're here...

I've heard of active RFID being used to track people in buildings. You have three or more RFID readers which read the signal strength of an active RFID tag in the ball. I'd expect this to be less accurate than vision systems though.