Ryan Gardiner Advisor: Kent Chamberlin ECE 791 Project Proposal Ryan Gardiner Advisor: Kent Chamberlin

Technology in Sports Over the course of the last few years, there have been tremendous strides in the use of technology in professional sports Prominent examples include the use of replay in MLB, and ball-tracking technology professional tennis These innovations and others allow umpires/referees/judges to make more accurate calls and thus a more fair game

Tennis Replay System (Hawk-Eye)

MLB Replay System

Pros vs. Amateurs: The Problem Unfortunately, these technology innovations have only occurred at the professional level There are no such technologies available at the amateur level, mainly due to lack of a market and overall cost A cheap, effective technology system could vastly increase the quality of the game at the amateur level

Player-Tracking Grid In the realm of sports technology, ice hockey has had limited innovation in comparison to other major sports This is especially true at the amateur level, where teams are lucky to even acquire ice time Only at the professional level is there any sort of data tracking technology

Possible Hockey Applications

Two-Fold Applications Officiating Have a reliable technology to fall back on in the case of a close-call/have instantaneous automated calls (offsides, ect.) Coaching Valuable to coaches to have real-time player tracking and replays to show players

The Grid

Proposed Sensor Location

Proposed Sensor Location Sensor located in the middle of the puck

Tentative Timeline Create small grid of transmitters ( <4x4 ) for initial testing Perform tests with single transmitter on a string simulating a skate, eventually expanding the grid to a larger and larger size Once an adequate size has been tested work on material to cover grid and not be affected by the ice required Test cover material in water, and then eventually ice with similar tests as before

Courses Involved ECE649 ECE715 ECE603 Embedded Design Strategies Transistor Sizing/Spacing ECE603 Electric/Magnetic Field Considerations

Challenges How would sensor impact physics of the ball/puck Would inserting a chip into a puck cause drastic changes to the game? Implementing/Testing grid with ice Once grid is frozen, cannot retrieve or access grid for some amount of time Can only perform tests for a limited time once frozen unless performed at special location Accuracy Testing Determining how many sensors are required to produce a grid that will yield acceptable results Determining the tradeoff of Cost(# of sensors) vs. accuracy

Cost Ice Hockey, by default, is a very expensive sport due to the equipment required and the cost of buying ice time There is little room for most families to further burden themselves with outside costs Cost is the largest barrier to amateur athletics benefiting from sensor technology

Other Possible Applications Baseball-tracking to immediately confirm/reverse home runs and foul balls Football-tracking for offsides, out of bounds, ball spotting Soccer, Lacrosse tracking for out of bounds calls

Technology “TXC100 is a rugged, single chip ASK/FSK Transmitter IC in the 300-450 MHz frequency range. This chip is highly integrated and has all required RF functions including a complete PLL circuit and power amplifier, thus requiring very few external components. The TXC100 is feature rich and is very small in size with high output power and low current consumption…” (rfm.com)

TXC100 Transmitter Small Size (3x3 mm, 16 pin output) Low Voltage and Current Consumption (<3.6 V , <7mA) Operates from -40º to 125º C

TRC03 Transceiver Ideal for low cost, high volume, two-way short-range wireless applications 200 kb/s Data Rate Low voltage/current consumption (< 3.6V , 3.3mA)

Conclusions Player-Tracking grid for hockey rinks would be beneficial to both coaches and referees who do not have access to such technology Such a grid has numerous possible applications in the realm of amateur sports The cost of the product must be low in order to be taken advantage of by the largest amount of people There will be several design challenges along the way, including testing the grid with ice and not affecting the physics of the puck

Questions?