Technical Validation of FIFA's SAOT

At the MIT Sports Lab, I worked with FIFA alongside Hawkeye Innovations and Kinexon to validate the optical skeletal-tracking and connected-ball systems that underpin Semi-Automated Offside Technology (SAOT).

Project period · January 2021 – June 2022

The problem

This new offside technology only works when the two sensing systems are accurate, timely, and synchronized. The challenge was to assess skeletal tracking and connected ball feeds under live-event conditions and identify the failure modes that could compromise a decision at the exact moment the offside is officiated.

The system

I developed a live data-collection platform using RabbitMQ and Google Cloud Platform, measured latency from collection to reception, and performed statistical analyses of data quality and consistency across providers. I also analyzed the synchronization between connected-ball and skeletal-tracking data so the two sources could support a reliable officiating workflow.

Impact

The work helped FIFA evaluate the technology pipeline, as well as the data providers to improve their systems. The insights that we generated were a key factor for deciding that SAOT was ready to be used at the 2022 FIFA World Cup. I applied the following mindset throughout the project: test the data path under realistic operating conditions, examine the data quality and consistency with a critical eye, and make failure modes visible. This methodology continues to be how I build production systems.

Read the FIFA announcement and the MIT Technology Review interview covering the Sports Lab's work with FIFA.