Automatic detection of player positions and trajectories during a soccer match for the measurement of physical and tactical performance

This paper describes a video-data processing solution for determining the positions of all players during the course of a team sporting event. Signals received from three fixed cameras that cover the entire playing area are treated by modelling of the background and extraction of the positions of the players in motion. The gathered data makes it possible to measure the physical performance of each player (expended effort and its distribution per period of play) as well as the tactical performance based on the polygons formed by players of the same team or the same section. The laws of perspective projection are exploited to represent the positions of the players on the field.