Electronic tagging - Can this be done

[Pclarkeirl]

Hi,
does any one know if it would be possible to electronically mark out a playing pitch and then have the players wear a tag or bracelet which would monitor/record their position within the pitch. Obviously accuracy would need to be within a approx 1 meter or better. I'm thinking some form of RFID rather than SATNAV. I would be interested in getting some ideas on this.
regards
Pat

 

[duffy]

How about a camera and do colorimetry on the player's hats or uniforms?

Maybe ultrasonics, time-of-flight to multiple recievers to get redundant information to reduce the blocking of the signal from intervening players, time division multiplex the player transmitters to differentiate the players.

RFID only works over short distances, you would have to put a whole bunch of loops on the field, and I'm not sure how well they would work through dirt.

GPS can actually give you the resolution you need - the trick is to place some stationary recievers around the field and use them as a reference to compensate for the error.

 

[Pclarkeirl]

Hi Duffy,
thanks for that. I am assuming that a GPS system would be bulkier and more expensive. I am interested in being able to record second by second (or even less) data transmitted by the tags or GPS.

Take the following example:

10 Athletes running 1500m track event, All athletes have TAGS (RFID or GPS) attached. The race lasts approx 4 minutes. Using these tags can a second by second account of the race be transmitted to a receiver allowing both online analysis and post race analysis. For example at 2 minutes into the race athlete Number 7 was ahead of athlete number 2 by 3.2 seconds. Athlete Number 2 was ahead of athlete number 6 by 1.01 seconds etc etc...

Assuming the track was the aproximately the size of a football field

1. How big would a GPS tag have to be ?
2. How often can a tag transmit data to a receiver (eg 1 transmit per second, 100 transmits per second etc... ?
3. Would one receiver be capable of receiving all the data ?
4. What would the range of the receiver be ?

Best regards
Pat