Do you want to take part in the biggest sporting event ever held in Qatar? Everyone is counting down the days until November 21, 2022, when the FIFA World Cup will officially begin. More than anything, we are interested in the variety of this game. The excitement is actually in learning how AI will play a crucial role in this amazing event.
Debatable referee decisions were a big concern in prior world cups. Experts guarantee that these issues will not be encounter in the new 2022 World Cup, which will feature artificial intelligence. AI technology is predict to have a huge impact on the game’s success. The major objective of AI in this match is to assist in correcting offside judgments. This blog will provide you with a small idea of your worries. Let’s have a look at it.
FIFA Presents Semi-automated Offside Technology.
With the technology of AI, many decisions are made in the coming FIFA World Cup. Artificial intelligence technology can be use to determine a player’s offside status by combining limb tracking cameras and ball tracking data.
Limb-tracing Camera System
Using a limb-tracking camera system, FIFA will implement new technology to enhance offside calls during the World Cup and for tracking the position of players. The referee and linesmen are assist by a huge number of cameras mount on the roof of the stadium to track the ball. Artificial intelligence and this series of cameras track players’ limbs and quickly generate virtual offside lines for referees.
The 12 cameras placed inside the stadium also track the Al-Rihla match ball and players by determining each player’s precise location on the ground using 29 data points from their limbs and extremities 50 times every second. That helps the referee team sitting outside the VAR room to reduce the controversial offside calls during play time.
“Al Rihla” for Var Decisions
The “Al -Rihla” ball, with connected ball technology reveal by Adidas, is going to be the quickest ever ball using in the FIFA world-cup. The ball is designing after extensive testing in adidas labs. The official match ball has a number of useful data points in position during the time of play. The ball said information about players 500 times a second (previously it was 50 times per second). The 20 panels on the ball help to improve aerodynamics, which in turn helps players hit their shots with more accuracy and swerve.
Features:
- supports peak game speed and flies faster than any other ball in match history.
- Water-based inks and glues are using as the colors in the ball, making it more environmentally friendly.
- CRT-CORE — The ball’s core with maximum shape and air retention provides speed, accuracy, and consistency for fast-paced action and precision.
- Speedshell: A textured PU skin improves accuracy and flight stability.
- The Adidas Suspension System in the ball’s center hosts and stabilizes a 500Hz inertial measurement unit(IMU) motion sensor, which provides unprecedented insight into every aspect of the ball’s movement.
- A sensor is place inside the ball that sends data 500 times per second, to allow a precise detection of the kick point for offside decisions.
The sensor is an IMU sensor. The ball data stream will be provided by the IMU sensor inside the ball. So we receive an automated kick point detection that is extremely accurate, which is crucial in extremely close and extremely tight offside situations.
Here, combining the different data sets by applying Artificial Intelligence, this automated alert is then appearing on a timeline inside the video operations room. This is happening immediately, within a few seconds. The datasets are accurately create using various data labeling techniques. Perfect training datasets show the significance of AI in sports applications. Infolks, will provide the best training datasets for sports modules using various data labeling techniques.
To double check each decision with the technology working within seconds in the match, officials have a VAR room in the stadium. A main video official, VAR monitors the match every time for clear and obvious errors.
Room for Video Assistant Referees
The first introduction of VAR was in Russia in 2018. A video assistant referee (VAR) helps the on-field referee with contentious match decisions. A central team of video assistant referees will monitor the FIFA World Cup match from the VAR room to check the fouls, offsides, and other decisions are correctly mention by the on-field referee.
VAR Room Upgrade for FIFA 2022
The VAR works in a very similar way to the existing one, but using AI, it detects offsides on its own and alerts the video officials. The AI continuously analyzing all of these data points, and when an offside is detect, it alerting the officials in the VAR room. It is hope that this warning will read “OFFSIDE DETECTED! HALT PLAY!.
Differences From the Current VAR System
In the existing setup, the on-field referee looks at an offside call and referees it to the VAR room for their discretion. In the new setup, that controversial decision is allocate automatically before the on-field referees refer to it.
On-field referees will not need to refer an offsite call decision to the VAR room. Because the VAR room will have an alert set, this technology allows the VAR officials to come up with a final conclusion. While the decision communicates with the online referees, a video explaining the decision will be readily available.
Reducing Controversial Offside Calls
Controversial offside calls will be resolve by this technology with speed and accuracy. The decision for offsides will not have to wait for a call from the on-field referee to refer to the VAR room and come back with the final decision. AI technology will make all these processes very fast.
The FIFA referee committee believes that the effect of AI in football will have a positive impact on this match. AI gives precise measurements and helps to create accurate offside decisions in FIFA. Anyway, they believe that the number of major mistakes should reduce in decision making. The committee anticipates that semi-automated offside technology will revolutionize football by providing faster and more accurate decisions in this FIFA World Cup football match.