• awk-Eye Sensor’s Officers

•
Dr. Paul Hawkins (Chairman of the Board) - Paul Hawkins was the inventor of
Hawk-Eye and is the Managing Director of Hawk-Eye Innovations since its creation in
2001. Paul has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and was a minor county cricketer, Hawk-
Eye's first sport. Paul has worked tirelessly to grow the business and get Hawk-Eye to
the world leading level it is today. It was a proud moment when Hawk-Eye was first
used officially at a Grand Slam event. Paul's passion for sport and broad technical
knowledge have both proved useful assets in achieving the success to date.
•
• Mark Greenberg (President & CEO and Board Member) - Mark Greenberg joined
Hawk-Eye Sensors as President and CEO after working with Paul Hawkins for over two
years on the Hawk-Eye Sensors solution. Prior to joining the Hawk-Eye team, Mark
had a 26 year career with Accenture where he had served as the Managing Partner for
several groups in Accenture’s Technology Practices including Americas Capability
Development, Global Chemicals Practice and Americas Manufacturing Practice. With
Hawk-Eye he has merged two of his passions, leveraging technology for innovative
purposes and the sport of tennis into a second career. He serves on both the Hawk-
Eye Innovations and Hawk-Eye Sensors Boards. He lives in Boston with his wife and
three children, all competitive tennis players. Mark received his Masters degrees from
Harvard University in Applied Math and Information Sciences.
•
• Mark H. Getty (Principal Shareholder) - Mark Getty became the principal
shareholder of the Wisden Group following the death of his father, Sir Paul Getty, in
2003. Sir Paul was passionate about cricket; in 1993 he acquired The Wisden
Cricketers‘ Almanack and the Wisden Cricket Monthly magazine and he was
instrumental in merging Wisden Online with Cricinfo. In 2006, Wisden Group acquired
Hawk-Eye Innovations and Hawk-Eye Sensors, to expand the Groups focus in Cricket
(Hawk-Eyes initial focus area) and other areas of sports. Recently, both Hawk-Eye
products have been spun off into a self-standing entity, Hawk-Eye Limited. Mark
worked with Kidder Peabody in New York and then joined Hambros Bank Limited in
London in 1991. In 1993 he, along with Jonathan Klein, founded Getty Images, Inc.
He successfully negotiated the acquisition by Getty Images of several major image
brands, including Kodak’s Image Bank collection, Tony Stone Images, VCG and
PhotoDisc. Mark is now Non-Executive Chairman of Getty Images and Hawk-Eye
Limited.
Hawk-Eye
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Hawkeye (disambiguation).

Hawk-Eye is a complex computer system used in cricket, tennis and other sports to
visually track the path of the ball and display a record of its most statistically likely path
as a moving image.[1] In some sports, like tennis, it is now part of the adjudication
process. It is also used in some instances to predict the future path of a ball in cricket. It
was developed by engineers at Roke Manor Research Limited of Romsey, Hampshire in
the UK, in 2001. A UK patent was submitted but withdrawn by Dr Paul Hawkins and
David Sherry.[2] Later, the technology was spun off into a separate company, Hawk-Eye
Innovations Ltd., as a joint venture with television production company Sunset + Vine.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Method of operation
• 2 Applications in sport
o 2.1 Cricket
o 2.2 Tennis

 2.2.1 Unification of rules

o 2.3 Snooker
o 2.4 Association football

• 3 Doubts
• 4 Further developments
• 5 Use in computer games
• 6 See also
• 7 References

• 8 External links

[edit]Method of operation
All Hawk-Eye systems are based on the principles of triangulation using the visual
images and timing data provided by at least four high-speed video cameras located at
different locations and angles around the area of play.[2] The system rapidly processes
the video feeds by a high-speed video processor and ball tracker. A data store contains
a predefined model of the playing area and includes data on the rules of the game.

In each frame sent from each camera, the system identifies the group of pixels which
corresponds to the image of the ball. It then calculates for each frame the 3D position of
the ball by comparing its position on at least two of the physically separate cameras at
the same instant in time. A succession of frames builds up a record of the path along
which the ball has travelled. It also "predicts" the future flight path of the ball and where it
will interact with any of the playing area features already programmed into the database.
The system can also interpret these interactions to decide infringements of the rules of
the game.[2]

The system generates a graphic image of the ball path and playing area, which means
that information can be provided to judges, television viewers or coaching staff in
near real time.

The pure tracking system is combined with a backend database and archiving
capabilities so that it is possible to extract and analyse trends and statistics about
individual players, games, ball-to-ball comparisons, etc.

[edit]Applications in sport
[edit]Cricket

The technology was first used by Channel 4 during a Test

match between England and Pakistan on Lord's Cricket Ground, on 21 May 2001. It is
used primarily by the majority of television networks to track the trajectory of balls in
flight. In the winter season of 2008/2009 the ICC trialled a referral system where
Hawkeye was used for referring decisions to the third umpire if a team disagreed with an
LBW decision. The third umpire was able to look at what the ball actually did up to the
point when it hit the batsman, but could not look at the predicted flight of the ball after it
hit the batsman.[3]

Its major use in cricket broadcasting is in analysing leg before wicket decisions, where
the likely path of the ball can be projected forward, through the batsman's legs, to see if
it would have hit the stumps. Consultation of the third umpire, for conventional slow
motion or Hawk-Eye, on leg before wicket decisions, is not currently sanctioned in
international cricket and doubts remain about its accuracy in cricket.[4]
Due to its realtime coverage of bowling speed, the systems are also used to show
delivery patterns of bowler's behaviour such as line and length, or swing/turn
information. At the end of an over, all six deliveries are often shown simultaneously to
show a bowler's variations, such as slower deliveries, bouncers and leg-cutters. A
complete record of a bowler can also be shown over the course of a match.

Batsmen also benefit from the analysis of Hawk-Eye, as a record can be brought up of
the deliveries batsmen scored from. These are often shown as a 2-D silhouetted figure
of a batsmen and colour-coded dots of the balls faced by the batsman. Information such
as the exact spot where the ball pitches or speed of the ball from the bowler's hand (to
gauge batsman reaction time) can also help in post-match analysis.

[edit]Tennis

In Serena Williams's quarterfinal loss to Jennifer Capriati at the 2004 US Open, many
crucial calls were contested by Williams, and TV replays demonstrated that some were
indeed erroneous. Though the calls themselves were not reversed, the chair
umpire Mariana Alves was dismissed from the tournament and subsequent US Opens.
These errors prompted talks about line calling assistance especially as the Auto-Ref
system was being tested by the U.S. Open at that time and was shown to be very
accurate.[5]

In late 2005 Hawk-Eye was tested by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) in New
York City and was passed for professional use. Hawk-Eye reported that the New York
tests involved 80 shots being measured by the ITF's high speed camera, a device similar
to MacCAM. During an early test of the system during an exhibition tennis tournament in
Australia (seen on local TV), there was an instance when the tennis ball was shown as
"Out", but the accompanying word was "In".[citation needed] This was explained to be an error
in the way the tennis ball was shown on the graphical display as a circle, rather than as
an ellipse.[citation needed] This was immediately corrected.

Hawk-Eye has been used in television coverage of several major tennis tournaments,
including Wimbledon, the Stella Artois at Queens, the Australian Open, the Davis
Cup and theTennis Masters Cup. The US Open Tennis Championship announced they
would make official use of the technology for the 2006 US Open where each player
receives two challenges per set.[6] It is also used as part of a larger tennis simulation
implemented by IBM called PointTracker.

The 2006 Hopman Cup in Perth, Western Australia, was the first elite-level tennis
tournament where players were allowed to challenge point-ending line calls, which were
then reviewed by the referees using Hawk-Eye technology. It used 10 cameras feeding
information about ball position to the computers.

In March 2006, at the Nasdaq-100 Open, Hawk-Eye was used officially for the first time
at a tennis tour event. Later that year, the US Open became the first grand-slam event to
use the system during play, allowing players to challenge line calls.

The 2007 Australian Open was the first grand-slam tournament of 2007 to implement
Hawk-Eye in challenges to line calls, where each tennis player on Rod Laver Arena was
allowed 2 incorrect challenges per set and one additional challenge should a tiebreaker
be played. In the event of an advantage final set, challenges were reset to 2 for each
player every 12 games, i.e. 6 all, 12 all. Controversies followed the event as at times
Hawk-Eye produced erroneous output. In 2008, tennis players were allowed 3 incorrect
challenges per set instead. Any leftover challenges didn't carry over to the next set.
Once, in one of Amélie Mauresmo's matches, she challenged a ball that was called in,
Hawk-Eye showed the ball was out by less than a millimeter but the verdict was called
in. As a result, the point was replayed and Mauresmo didn't lose an incorrect challenge.

Ball compared with impact.

The Hawk-Eye technology was used in the 2007 Dubai Tennis Championships with
some minor controversies. Defending champion Rafael Nadal accused the system of
incorrectly declaring an out ball to be in following his exit. The umpire had called a ball
out; when Mikhail Youzhny challenged the decision, Hawk-Eye said it was in by 3mm.
[7]
Youzhny said afterwards that he himself thought the mark may have been wide but
then offered that this kind of technology error could easily have been made by linesmen
and umpires. Nadal could only shrug, saying that had this system been on clay, the mark
would have clearly shown Hawk-Eye to be wrong.[8] The mark left by the ball on a hard
court is a subset of the total area that the ball was in contact with the court (a certain
amount of pressure is required to create the mark)[citation needed].

The 2007 Wimbledon Championships also implemented the Hawk-Eye system as an

officiating aid on Centre Court and Court 1, and each tennis player was allowed 3
incorrect challenges per set. If the set produced a tiebreaker, each player was given an
additional challenge. Additionally, in the event of a final set (third set in women's or
mixed matches, fifth set in men's matches), where there is no tiebreak, each player's
number of challenges was reset to three if the game score reached 6-6, and again at 12-
12. Teymuraz Gabashvili, in his 1st round match against Roger Federer, made the first
ever Hawk-Eye challenge on Centre Court. Additionally, during the finals of Federer
against Rafael Nadal, Nadal challenged a shot which was called out. Hawk-Eye showed
the ball as in, just clipping the line. The reversal agitated Federer enough for him to
request (unsuccessfully) that the umpire turn off the Hawk-Eye technology for the
remainder of the match.[9]

In the 2009 Australian Open fourth round match between Roger Federer and Tomáš
Berdych, Berdych challenged a call that was out. The Hawk-Eye system wasn't available
when he challenged, likely due to a particularly pronounced shadow on the court. As a
result, the original call stood.[10]

In the 2009 Indian Wells Masters quarterfinals match between Ivan Ljubičić and Andy
Murray, Murray challenged a ball that was called out. The Hawk-Eye system showed the
ball landed on the center of the line despite instant replay images showing that the ball
was clearly out. It was later revealed that the Hawk-Eye system had mistakenly picked
up the second bounce, which was on the line, instead of the first bounce of the ball
which was clearly out.[11] Immediately after the match, Murray apologized to Ljubicic for
the call, and acknowledged that the point was out.

The Hawk-Eye system was developed as a replay system, originally for TV Broadcast
coverage. As such, it initially couldn't call ins and outs live, only the Auto-Ref system
could produce live in/out calls as it was developed for instant line calling. Both systems
can produce replays.

The Hawk-Eye Innovations website states that the system has an average error of
3.6 mm. The standard size of a tennis ball is 65 to 68 mm. This means that there is a 5%
error relative to the diameter of the ball. For the sake of comparison, approximately 5%
of the diameter is the fluff on the ball.

[edit]Unification of rules

Until March 2008, the International Tennis Federation (ITF), Association of Tennis
Professionals (ATP), Women's Tennis Association (WTA), Grand Slam Committee, and
several individual tournaments had conflicting rules on how Hawk-Eye was to be utilized.
A key example of this was the number of challenges a player was permitted per set,
which varied among events.[12] Some tournaments allowed players a greater margin for
error, with players allowed an unlimited numbers of challenges over the course of a
match.[12] In other tournaments players received two or three per set.[12] On March 19,
2008, the aforementioned organizing bodies announced a uniform system of rules: three
unsuccessful challenges per set, with an additional challenge if the set reaches a
tiebreak. The next scheduled event on the men and women's tour, the 2008 Sony
Ericsson Open, was the first event to implement these new, standardized rules.[13]

[edit]Snooker

At the World Snooker Championship 2007, the BBC used Hawk-Eye for the first time in
its television coverage to show player views, particularly in the incidents of potential
snookers.[14]It has also been used to demonstrate intended shots by players when the
actual shot has gone awry. It is now used by the BBC at every World Championship, as
well as some other major tournaments. The BBC uses the system sporadically, for
instance in the 2009 Masters at Wembley the Hawkeye was at most used once or twice
per frame. In contrast to tennis, the Hawkeye is never used in snooker to assist referees'
decisions.

[edit]Association football
The Hawk-Eye has been proposed for use in Association football but has yet to win
general approval from the major governing bodies of the sport.

[edit]Doubts

Hawkeye is now familiar to sport fans around the world for the views it brings into sports
like cricket and tennis. Although this new technology has for the most part been
embraced, it has been recently criticised by some, particularly some specific, high profile
calls[citation needed]. The Australian media in cricket were critical of a specific LBW appeal
made by Anil Kumblewhen Andrew Symonds was batting. The ball, as suggested by
Hawkeye, would have bounced over the stumps, but to the naked eye looked absolutely
out. [15] In the Nadal-Federer final at Wimbledon in 2008, a ball that appeared out was
called in by 1mm, a distance well within the advertised margin of error.[16] Some
commentators have criticized the system's 3.6mm statistical margin of error as too large.
[17]
Others have noted that while 3.6mm is extraordinarily accurate, this margin of error is
only for the witnessed trajectory of the ball. Its use in broadcasts to predict the trajectory
of a ball had it not hit a batsman is less certain, especially in situations where the
conditions of the turf would affect its future trajectory, i.e. where the ball is headed to the
ground or has only a short hop before hitting the batsman.[18] Currently, the system is not
used officially in such circumstances, though it is used in television broadcasts and
analysis.

In 2008, an article in a peer-reviewed journal[19] consolidated many of these doubts. The

authors acknowledged the value of the system, but noted that it was probably fallible,
and that its failure to depict a margin of error gave a spuriously accurate depiction of
events. The authors also argued that the probable limits to its accuracy were not
acknowledged by players, officials, commentators or spectators, who treated it as
depicting unchallengeable truth. For instance, they argued that Hawk-Eye may struggle
with predicting the curved trajectory of a cricket ball after bouncing: the time between a
ball bouncing and striking the batsman may be too short to generate the three frames (at
least) needed to plot a curve accurately. The article also argued that Hawk-Eye's
depiction of line decisions in tennis ignored such factors as the distortion of the ball on
bouncing and the less-than-complete precision with which the lines on the court are
drawn. The makers of Hawk-Eye strongly attacked many of these claims, but the authors
have not withdrawn them.

This section requires expansion.

[edit]Further developments
On June 14, 2006, the Wisden Group bought the Hawk-Eye technology.[20] The
acquisition is intended to strengthen Wisden's presence in cricket, and allow it to enter
tennis and other international sports. Hawk-Eye is already working on implementing a
system for basketball.

According to Hawk-Eye's website, the system produces much more data than that
shown on television. This data could easily be shown on the Internet.

The Football Association has declared the system as "ready for inspection by FIFA",
after tests suggested that the results of a goal-line incident could be relayed to the match
referee within half-a-second (IFAB, the governing body for the Laws of the game, insists
on goals being signalled immediately e.g. within five seconds).[21]

[edit]Use in computer games

Hawk-Eye in the game

The use of the Hawk-Eye brand and simulation has been licensed to Codemasters for
use in the video game Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 to make the game appear
more like television coverage, and subsequently in Brian Lara International Cricket
2007, Ashes Cricket 2009and International Cricket 2010. A similar version of the system
has since been incorporated into the Xbox 360 version of Smash Court Tennis 3, but it is
not present in the PSP version of the game, although it does feature a normal challenge
of the ball which does not use the Hawk-Eye feature.
Hawk-Eye Innovations, Press release June 2010
It took a series of poor line calls in the 2004 US Open as the catalyst for change for
electronic line
calling in tennis. If this incident is the same catalyst in football, then whilst it is
disappointing that
FIFA have been reactive rather than proactive, at least football will change for the better
in the
long run. However, FIFA may decide to stick by their guns, and not allow this incident
to change
their decision. If they adopt this approach, they may use the following arguments to
justify their
decision, each of which is responded to below:
1) HAWK-EYE IS NOT ACCURATE ENOUGH
This is simply not true. Hawk-Eye has been independently tested by the English Premier
League and the IFAB (International Football Association Board), and shown to work in
all
instances tested. These tests included having many people around the ball as it crosses
the
line. The official press statement after the IFAB meeting in March 2010 accepted that
their
decision was NOT because the technology did not work, but because of the fundamental
issue of whether technology is good for the game. Despite this, more recently Sepp
Blatter
did justify their goal line decision by stating that Hawk-Eye is not accurate. This is a
mistruth, and Sepp Blatter is aware of that.
2) FOOTBALL IS BEST OFFCIATED BY HUMANS, AND THE ADDITIONAL
ASSISTANT
SOLUTION IS A BETTER WAY TO GO
This solution has had mixed success in the European League. Whilst additional assistants
would have resolved this incident, if you look at a large set of close goal line incidents,
many
of them only go over the line for a fraction of a second, and no human is able to fairly
officiate
these incidents regardless of where you are standing.
3) FOOTBALL IS A BETTER SPORT WITH CONTROVERSY – THIS IS ALL PART
OF
THE DEBATE IN THE PUB AFTER THE MATCH
Maybe in 1966 when broadcast technology were far inferior, it was interesting to debate
if it
was or was not a goal. Things have moved on since then, and the only debate following
this
incident is “Why don’t the governing bodies do something about this?”
4) THE TECHNOLOGY IS TOO EXPENSIVE, AND IT WOULD BE ESSENTIAL
THAT
GOAL LINE TECHNOLOGY IS AVAILABLE AT ALL LEVELS OF THE GAME
The technology would be an attractive new sponsorship opportunity, as it is in tennis.
Tennis
makes money from Hawk-Eye, by selling the sponsorship of Hawk-Eye for more than
HawkEye is paid to provide the service. The same would be true in football. If you only
adopt
technology if it is available at all levels, then you will always progress the sport at the
pace of
the slowest. The biggest games are hyped, by the importance of winning, and by doing
so
football has an obligation to provide the players with the best opportunity for the destiny
to be
in their own hands. Everyone knows that the technology is available, and not using it
undermines the credibility of the sport.
5) WHERE DOES IT STOP? IF WE HAVE TECHNOLOGY FOR GOAL LINE, DOES
IT
GET EXTENDED TO OFFSIDES, HAND BALLS ETC
Goal line incidents are the only decision which is entirely definitive and the answer can
be
provided to the referee within 0.5 seconds in the incident happening. This makes a clear
distinction between goal line and other decisions. Referees want goal line technology, it
would be there to help them not to replace them