Ball-Throwing Training Platform With 3D Ball-Trajectory Feedback
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing soccer training methods lack a disciplined approach for measuring progress and improving first touch and ball control skills, often leading to the development of bad habits without proper instruction, and current video analysis technologies are inadequate for analyzing dynamic ball movements in sports.
Innovation Solution
A networked environment using a ball-throwing machine and multiple cameras to provide structured training programs, capturing player movements, and analyzing ball trajectories for feedback, enabling real-time and historical performance evaluation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If players perform shooting and passing drills involving several balls, then shooting and passing accuracy can be improved, but players cannot concentrate on tracking the location of each pass or shot, leading to loss of performance data
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements automated feedback by using cameras and computer analysis to track and record the location of each ball during drills. This provides immediate performance data back to the player and coach, eliminating the need for manual tracking and ensuring no performance information is lost during multi-ball drills.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the manual mechanical system of human concentration and memory with an automated optical and computational system. Cameras capture ball positions, computer algorithms track trajectories, and software records performance data, substituting human cognitive limitations with automated technological systems.
2Loss of information
If video recording is used to review training sessions, then players can see their performance, but players cannot understand proper mechanics without additional instruction, failing to learn from the recording
Solution Approach 1:
The system introduces computer analysis software and automated instruction systems as intermediaries between the video recording and the player. This intermediary layer provides expert analysis, highlights proper mechanics, and guides learning, transforming raw video footage into actionable instructional content.
3Measurement precision
If current video analysis technologies are used for golf swing analysis, then static ball hitting can be analyzed, but these technologies cannot analyze dynamic ball movements in sports like soccer
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal analysis system that can handle both static and dynamic ball movements. The camera system and computer algorithms are designed to track objects in motion across various sports contexts, making the technology adaptable to soccer, baseball, and other dynamic sports rather than being limited to golf swing analysis.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for adaptive user training and gaming utilizing a media player is disclosed that includes acquiring images from cameras surrounding a training environment and attempting to segment a ball and a human in each of the images, wherein when failing to segment either the ball or the human in a first image, the first image is rejected from further processing. The operations additionally include creating masks of the ball and the human, extracting features for both the ball and the human in each of the remaining images, and computing surface information of the training environment using photoclinometry. For each of the remaining images, the operations includes computing a distance between the ball and the human. Additionally, the operations include identifying an image having the greatest distance between the ball and the human and computing a three-dimensional topography from the identified image.