Aug 02, 2013By utilizing real-time location system (RTLS) data that pinpoints players' movements, sports teams could not only enhance the spectator's experience of watching a game on television or online, but also help coaches and managers better train and manage their players. That is the premise behind Zebra Technologies Corp.'s newly released MotionWorks Sports Solution, which monitors players' movements via ultra-wideband (UWB) RFID tags worn by the athletes, with the tags' transmissions received by readers installed on the playing field's sidelines, and with each tag analyzed by special software designed to determine a player's location, as well direction and speed of movement.
The resulting information, which would then be forwarded to a team's or broadcaster's existing coaching software system, could make spectators and coaches much more knowledgeable about each player's performance, Zebra Technologies reports.
The Zebra MotionWorks Sports Solution is being trialed by a professional sports team within the United States and another in the Asia-Pacific region, says Jill Stelfox, Zebra Technologies' general manager of location solutions. Due to non-disclosure agreements, she declines to provide details regarding the teams involved.
Zebra's Dart line of UWB RFID products is traditionally used worldwide for the real-time location of assets, work in progress or emergency evacuation in a variety of industries, including manufacturing. The Dart tags typically have a lifespan of more than seven years, and can be interrogated from a distance of up to 328 feet, with location granularity less than 1 foot. Recently, the company began exploring how the same technology used in the Dart tags and readers could be deployed within a high-speed environment, such as sports. The MotionWorks solution employs Zebra's Dart readers and a different form factor of the Dart tags.
According to Stelfox, there are other commercially available products that sports teams are currently using to track players optically on a field. However, she notes, some teams feel that the results are not as precise as they would need to be in order to provide useful location information, such as the direction in which an athlete moves, the varying speeds he or she reaches and that individual's proximity with other players. "RFID gives very precise data," she states, adding that in tests of the MotionWorks solution, Zebra yielded a location granularity of less than 6 inches.
The MotionWorks software provides analytics based on the collected location data, such as how fast a given player is moving at the beginning and end of a game. It can also determine when speeds may have changed—for example, following an injury incurred during a game. That information could then be reviewed by the team's staff on their management software, or by sports fans on television. It could also be used for safety purposes; for instance, the software could provide analysis indicating how hard players had collided with each other .
The tags are round, with a diameter about that of a quarter. A player wears two such tags—one on the front side of the body, the other on the back—either by placing them into a shoulder pad or sliding them into pockets in the uniform jersey designed for that purpose. Generally, between 12 and 30 receivers would be installed around a playing field's periphery, in order to enable multiple readers to capture each tag's transmissions and thereby provide more precise location data.
The tags transmit data in the UWB bandwidth, ranging from 500 MHz to 10.6 GHz, in a series of pulses—typically, at a rate of 10 to 50 pulses per second. The readers forward that information, via a cabled connection, to a database, where the MotionWorks software determines each tag's location in real time. The software then calculates such details as speed, orientation around other tagged players and direction of movement, including whether the individual is running forwards or backwards, based on the two tags' orientations.
That data is then forwarded to one of the multiple software packages used by broadcasters or sports teams to manage and display information related to specific athletes' performance. For example, during televised games, viewers already view player-related data, which is presented by the broadcaster's embellishment software provider. With the MotionWorks system, that same software provider would now have considerably more data to work with related to a given player's real-time performance. Similarly, coaches and team managers on the field could view MotionWorks-provided performance statistics on a laptop or tablet using coaching software, such as Coach's Office. Stelfox reports that Zebra is currently working with a sports software provider to integrate the MotionWorks platform with that company's offering.
In a game like football, the speed of players' movements, as well as their proximity with each other, would allow television audiences to view such details as the length of each throw between a quarterback and a wide receiver. In soccer, viewers would be able to know how close a player was to the other team's goalie when attempting to score.
For team management, Stelfox says, the data can be used not only to analyze an individual player's performance (and to then address any concerns with that performance, through training or other methods), but also to provide team-wide data. For example, it can ascertain how a team is performing overall, based on the combined data of its players.
In addition, Zebra Technologies is offering Field Implementation service, provided by the company's Zebra Professional Services team—a command center in which Zebra personnel monitor a customer's system operation in real time. Zebra is offering the service as an additional component to the MotionWorks system, in order to ensure that the technology continues operating as needed during games or practices. The Zebra Professional Services division, based in San Jose, Calif., can monitor the operations of both tags and readers to track the system's health. In the event that a reader were to fail, or if a tag were to cease transmitting, Zebra's staff would be alerted to the issue. They could then respond by sending locally based contractors to the field to correct the problem, or by contacting team management at the stadium or on the field.
"One of the challenges with technology is that it can be complex for end users to run," Stelfox states, "so we decided to take out some of that complexity." With the Field Implementation service, she adds, "we can provide offsite support, and help those in the stadiums make sure the system is always up and running."
