Drone Referee - MSD 2017/18

Introduction

Abstract

Being a billion Euro industry, the game of Football is constantly evolving with the use of advancing technologies that not only improves the game but also the fan experience. Most football stadiums are outfitted with state-of-the-art camera technologies that provide previously unseen vantage points to audiences worldwide. However, football matches are still refereed by humans who take decisions based on their visual information alone. This causes the referee to make incorrect decisions, which might strongly affect the outcome of the games. There is a need for supporting technologies that can improve the accuracy of referee decisions. Through this project, TU Eindhoven hopes develop a system with intelligent technology that can monitor the game in real time and make fair decisions based on observed events. This project is a first step towards that goal.

In this project, a drone is used to evaluate a football match, detect events and provide recommendations to a remote referee. The remote referee is then able to make decisions based on these recommendations from the drone. This football match is played by the university’s RoboCup robots, and as a proof-of-concept, the drone referee is developed for this environment.

This project focuses on the design and development of a high level system architecture and corresponding software modules on an existing quadrotor (drone). This project builds upon data and recommendations by the first two generations of Mechatronics System Design trainees with the purpose of providing a proof-of-concept Drone Referee for a 2x2 robot-soccer match.