Antennas bring ultra-high frequencies to sports tracking
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Novocomms, a UK-based antennas specialist, has developed technology based on ultra-high band frequencies for sports that allows players and balls to be tracked in real-time.
Solving a longstanding challenge facing users of ultra-high band frequencies, design engineers at the Birmingham-based company were faced with the problem of building antennas that created high rates of pulses with sharp ‘edges’ that could be measured within a broadband environment. Much of the development work was based on the Fourier principle, which breaks down a complex waveform into a series of sine and cosine waves. In practice, this required the development of aerials and antennas that could receive high RF signals without corrupting the incoming data.
The innovative antennas and aerials enable coaches to analyse the performance of athletes, managers to improve team performance and viewers to enjoy an enhanced experience of the sport they are watching.
Colin Tucker, chairman of Novocomms, explains: “In effect, we are trying to perfect a radar system that can deal with not one, but two moving objects at the same time — the player and the ball. We also need to generate a lot of power and gain to accurately position fast-moving objects, such as rugby balls, cricket balls or footballs, in real-time.”
Ensuring a high level of position, navigation and timing (PNT) accuracy needed for sports tracking in a noisy RF environment across a whole football or rugby pitch required a significant increase in the antenna gain. However, to remain within strict legal boundaries, this meant that a delicate trade-off between signal quality, gain and power, while eliminating any signal distortion was vital.
The innovative technology is now being rolled out across the sports world with the aim of improving performance and viewer enjoyment.
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