A tracking system for sports, logistics and robotics

A system for precise tracking of fast-moving objects is described. It operates in the ISM band at 2.4 GHz. The processing power of the system is suited to track up to 140 objects. The concept is very flexible and can be adapted to different applications. The current design is tailored to a soccer game, tracking in real-time both players and ball. The system concept an inverse GPS approach is presented along with the hardware implementation. There are several physical phenomena the design has to take into account aiming at precise tracking: shock resistance of the ball-mounted transmitter, propagation conditions and antenna characteristics to name a few. This paper presents the influence of the receive antennas on the tracking performance of the system.