How does Semi automated offside technology work?
If you've been watching the 2022 world cup in Qatar you've likely seen or heard the mention of the new semi automated offside technology being used. but what is this and how does it work.
The technology uses 12 tracking cameras mounted on the top of the stadium that track the balls position. Impressively they also track up to 29 data points on every player on the pitch. The data points include all limbs and areas of the body that are relevant to tell if a player is offside or not such as the head, legs and torso.
The tracking cameras are combined with a sensor inside the match ball. Known as an IMU sensor which stands for inertial measurement unit. This sensor detects contact with the ball and sends data to the officials an incredible 500 times per second. This allows the precise moment the ball was kicked to be recorded which is crucial in making an offside decision.
We can see the technology in action here. The sensor in the ball is triggered as its kicked. This exact moment will be used in the offside decision. The yellow player here is the defender and the white player is the attacker. We can see the individual data points on the players monitoring the exact position of all parts of the body.
We can see here the defenders knee is the forward most part of the body so this will be used to automatically draw the offside line. If any of the data points on the attacker are over this line, then he is offside. As we can see here the attackers knee is very slightly over this line, making him offside.
This then triggers an alert to the video assistant referees that an offside player has received the ball. The players positioning and the moment the ball was kicked is then quickly analysed by the video assistant referees to confirm its correct before the final decision is made. This is why its known as semi automated rather than just automated or automatic as the final decision is still made by a human for now.
The end result is the viewers being shown a virtual image of the offside such as this . The idea behind this technology is to speed up offside reviews as the offside line doesn't need to be drawn by the video assistant referee it is done automatically, the exact moment the ball was kicked is also confirmed automatically meaning officials don't need to watch the replay several times to find out exactly when the ball was played. If you watch football regularly you'll know this can usually take a frustratingly long time.
If the technology is considered a success in speeding up the decision making its likely we'll see it start to roll out to leagues all over the world.
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