Robert Aughey, a researcher and professor from Victoria University, has collaborated with FIFA for several years on leading-edge football technologies.
Late last year, Victoria University was confirmed as the first university in the world to be an official FIFA Research Institute, focussed on football technologies.
Among those innovations, Aughey (pictured at Sevilla FC) has collaborated on video-assistant refereeing (VAR), semi-automated offside technology and an inertial sensor that collects spatial positioning data in real-time that have played a major role in the World Cup in Qatar.
Aughey discusses how the newest and improved innovations introduced to the world game can be implemented for decision-making in the finest of margins, making it much easier and quicker. He spoke exclusively to Soccerscene regarding where the technology is sitting, how it works and what to expect.
Are there technologies planned for the following years to come in football? If so, what sort of technologies can we expect to see?
Robert Aughey: I’m not sure that there’s things specifically planned necessarily but l know that the manufacturers of current technology are always improving their products, so the semi-automated offside technology for example tracks a certain number of parts of the body using an optical tracking system and l know they are looking to greatly expand the number of parts of the body that are tracked so that will further increase the accuracy of it.
Can you briefly explain how the different technologies work?
Robert Aughey: There are a number of technologies – in the ball for example at the World Cup, they have what are called inertial sensors and it can basically measure the amount of force applied to the ball, which can be from the foot kicking it or the ball hitting the ground – or the ball not hitting Ronaldo’s head in the case of the World Cup recently. They also have gyroscopes in the ball which can measure spin rate on the ball which is something that hasn’t really come into broadcast yet, but l think it will come in soon.
The actual tracking of athletes and the determination of offside using the semi-automated offside technology that uses a number of cameras that are installed in the stadium are pretty impressive computer vision technology, to take those images and turn them into the effective location of the different parts of the body on the pitch and they do that around 50 times per second.
What has been the reaction to the different technologies that have been implemented?
Robert Aughey: I think it has been overwhelmingly positive. As the technology improves further and likewise the speed of decision-making, that it will be an accepted part of the game very quickly, like hawk-eye is in tennis of the Australian Open or LBW decision-making in cricket – it will just be a normal part of the game.
How did ball sensors identify that a goal first attributed to Cristiano Ronaldo was in fact scored by a teammate?
Robert Aughey: Because they measure the force applied to the ball, so the sensor in the middle of the ball reacts when force is applied to it and it was clearly evident in the data that there was no force applied by Ronaldo’s head, so clearly he didn’t touch it.
Why was the Japan goal allowed to stand against Spain despite video-assistant refereeing (VAR) ruling it had not crossed the line?
Robert Aughey: The goal was allowed to stand because the ball did not fully leave the field of play. The goal line camera which is used for the goal line technology clearly showed the part of the ball was still within the field of play and not fully outside the field, so the correct decision was made in the end.
How does the ball work together with cameras to determine offsides?
Robert Aughey: The thing you obviously need with offsides is that you need to know exactly when the ball was kicked. The cameras take 50 images per second but the ball is sampling information at 500 times per second so you get a much more precise timing of when the ball was actually kicked, so that the two data sets are synchronised and you can then determine offside from there.
Any chance these technologies can be wrong?
Robert Aughey: Not wrong as such, as there’s levels of precision in any measurement system including referees, so we know how accurate the systems are and if they are used within the decision-making, they can’t be wrong as such. They could fail in theory in the sense that you could fail to have the technology available, but if that were to happen then the referee just does his or her job and we move on as if the technology wasn’t there.
Victoria University has released a video on some of the technology in action, which was conducted at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium. You can view the vision and more words from Robert Aughey here.
