RELATED APPLICATION

Benefit is claimed to India Provisional Application No. 828/CHE/2010, entitled "LOCATION AWARE SPORTS EQUIPMENT" by G. B. S Bindra, et. Al filed on March 26, 2010, which is herein incorporated in its entirety by reference for all purposes.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to the field of sports equipment, and more particularly relates to location aware sports equipments.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Standing and attention of a sport depends, among other things, on a perceived fairness in uphold and execution of the rules of the game, such as for instance leg before wicket decision in a cricket game. To determine if a situation is leg before wicket, the three umpires need to partially depend on video clips of an event captured by the on-field cameras.

These video clips are captured by moving the on-field cameras along with fast moving sports equipments and hence ensuring that the sports equipments are within boundaries of the camera lens is difficult in many situations. Thus, recording full travel paths and movement of the sport equipments may not be possible. Evidently, there are chances that continuous position and travel path of the sports equipments may not be always available for decision making.

High rate of umpiring errors gives rise to controversies that may damage the sports status, as well as cause unfair distribution of profit for the teams, should a wrong call upset a fair result of a match and appoint a wrong winner.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS

Figure 1 illustrates a schematic representation of a sports equipment with a tracking device, according to one embodiment.

Figure 2 is an exploded view showing various components of the tracking device in the sports equipment, according to one embodiment.

Figure 3 illustrates a schematic representation of a travel path of a cricket ball determined based on position determination data provided by a tracking device in the cricket ball.

The drawings described herein are for illustration purposes only and are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure in any way.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a location aware sports equipment. In the following detailed description of the embodiments of the invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which are shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined only by the appended claims.

Figure 1 illustrates a schematic representation of a sports equipment 100 with a tracking device 102, according to one embodiment. As shown, the tracking device 102 is disposed in the sports equipment 100 to enable location awareness within sports equipment 100.

The sports equipment 100 may be rugby ball, cricket ball, tennis ball, baseball, football, volley ball, hockey ball, tennis ball, tennis racquet, badminton racquet, badminton shuttle, cricket bat, hockey stick, sports shoes, cricket stumps and so on.

In one embodiment, the tracking device 102 receives geographical coordinates of the sports equipment 100 from a positioning system 104 (e.g., one or more assisted global positioning system (A-GPS) satellites) with respect to the movement of the sports equipment in space. In another embodiment, the tracking device 102 determines an impact on the sports equipment 100 with an object when the sports equipment 100 comes in contact with the other objects. Accordingly, the tracking device 102 communicates the geographical coordinates data and/or impact data to a computing device 106 (e.g., back office system, handheld device, etc.) on need basis.

The geographical coordinates data and/or impact data are used by the computing device 106 to perform further analysis. For example, the computing device 106 may calculate a travel path of the sports equipment 100 based on the geographical coordinates data received from the sports equipment 100 at various impact points in order to take a decision whether the sports equipment 100 is within or outside of boundaries of area under consideration at any given point of time.

With reference to Figure 2, the tracking device 102 includes an assisted global positioning server (A-GPS) receiver 202, an impact sensor 204, memory 206, a processor 208, and a communication unit 210. The A-GPS receiver 202 periodically receives location signals associated with a geographical location of the sports equipment 102 from the positioning system 104.

The impact sensor 204 generates impact signals when the sports equipment 100 comes in contact with any object in vicinity. The memory 206 coupled to the A-GPS receiver 202 and the impact sensor 204 temporarily stores the location signals and the impact signals.

The processor 208 coupled to the memory 206 processes the location signals into position determination data indicative of the geographical location of the sports equipment 100. In one embodiment, the position determination data represents longitude, latitude and altitude (LLA) coordinates associated with the moving sports equipment 100 at different points in space. Also, the processor 208 processes the impact signals into impact determination data.

Finally, the communication unit 210 wirelessly communicates the position determination data and/or the impact determination data to the computing device 106 remotely located from the sports equipment 100 in real time. The communication unit 210 may communicate with the computing device 106 using wireless communication technologies including but not limited to Bluetooth, WiFi and Zigbee. In some embodiments, the communication unit 210 may transmit impact determination data and corresponding position determination data, i.e., the LLA coordinates associated with the sports equipment 100 when the sports equipment 100 made an impact with an object(s) or a ground.

In one exemplary implementation, the computing device 106 determines travel path of the sports equipment 100 based on the LLA coordinates associated with the sports equipment 100 with respect to different points in space. In another exemplary implementation, the computing device 106 compares the position determination data of two or more sports equipments at a given point of time so that decision in a match or a game can be taken based on the relative position of one sports equipment with respect to another. In yet another exemplary implementation, the computing device 106 determines whether the sports equipment 100 came in contact with one or more objects during its movement based on the impact determination data. Moreover, the tracking device 102 may include a power unit 212 for supplying power for operation of the tracking device 102.

For example, the tracking device 102 may communicate first position determination data associated with a cricket ball 302 when the cricket ball 302 hits the pitch and a second position determination data when the cricket ball 302 hits pad of a batsman so that the computing device 106 can compute a travel path 304 of the cricket ball 302 using the first and second position determination data. Thus, a leg before wicket (LBW) situation can be decided accurately using third position determination data received from the tracking device 102 in stumps 306 if the travel path 304 of the cricket ball 302 falls within the position range of the stumps 306.

The change in position of the cricket ball 302 gives movement path of the cricket ball 302 in real time. In the above case, the three sets of geographical coordinates associated with the moving cricket ball 302 (x1, y1, z1), (x2, y2, z2), (x3, y3, z3) are captured at regular intervals and the travel path 304 of the cricket ball 302 is calculated, as illustrated in Figure 3. In this manner, the location aware sports equipment 100 enables sports authorities to take decisions during matches and games.

The present embodiments have been described with reference to specific example embodiments, it will be evident that various modifications and changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the various embodiments. Furthermore, the various devices, modules, selectors, estimators, and the like described herein may be enabled and operated using hardware circuitry, for example, complementary metal oxide semiconductor based logic circuitry, firmware, software and/or any combination of hardware, firmware, and/or software embodied in a machine readable medium. For example, the various electrical structure and methods may be embodied using transistors, logic gates, and electrical circuits, such as application specific integrated circuit.

We claim:

1. A tracking device disposed in a sports equipment, comprising:

an assisted global positioning system (A-GPS) receiver operative for periodically receiving location signals associated with a geographical location of a sports equipment from a positioning system;

an impact sensor for generating impact signals when the sports equipment comes in contact with at least one object;

memory coupled to the A-GPS receiver and the impact sensor for storing the local signals and the impact signals;

a processor coupled to the memory for processing the location signals into position determination data indicative of the geographical location of the sports equipment and the impact signals into impact determination data;

a communication unit for wirelessly communicating at least one of the position determination data and the impact determination data to a computing device remotely located from the sports equipment in real time.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein in wirelessly communicating the at least one of the position determination data and the impact determination data to the computing device, the communication unit communicates the position determination data to computing device with respect to the impact determination data.

3. The device of claim 2, wherein the position determination data represent longitude, latitude and altitude (LLA) coordinates associated with the sports equipment with respect to different points in space.

4. The device of claim 3, wherein the computing device computes a travel path of the sports equipment based on the LLA coordinates associated with the sports equipment.

5. The device of claim 1, further comprising a power unit for supplying power for
operation of the tracking device.

6. A apparatus comprising:

a sports equipment; and

a tracking device disposed in the sports equipment comprising:

an assisted global positioning system (A-GPS) receiver operative for periodically receiving a location signals associated with a geographical location of a sports equipment from a positioning system;

an impact sensor for generating impact signals when the sports equipment comes in contact with another object;

memory coupled to the A-GPS receiver and the impact sensor for storing the local signals and the impact signals;

a processor coupled to the memory for processing the location signals into position determination data indicative of the geographical location of the sports equipment and the impact signals into impact determination data;

a communication unit for wirelessly communicating at least one of the position determination data and the impact determination data to a computing device remotely located from the sports equipment in real time.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein in wirelessly communicating the at least one of the position determination data and the impact determination data to the computing device, the communication unit communicates the position determination data to computing device with respect to the impact determination data.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the position determination data represent longitude, latitude and altitude (LLA) coordinates associated with the sports equipment at different points in space.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the computing device computes a travel path of the sports equipment based on the LLA coordinates associated with the sports equipment.

10. The apparatus of claim 6, further comprising a power unit for supplying power for operation of the tracking device.

11. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the sports equipment is selected from the group consisting of rugby ball, cricket ball, tennis ball, baseball, football, volley ball, hockey ball, tennis ball, tennis racquet, badminton racquet, badminton shuttle, cricket bat, hockey stick sports shoes, and cricket stumps.

12. A sports equipment with a tracking device for computing and providing position determination data and impact determination data to a computing device as described herein and illustrated in the accompanying drawings.