Cameras, sensors, 3D body scanning: all technologies that help eliminate phone calls

In 2026 World Cupreferees on the field and officials on the sidelines will be able to use an abundance of technology to help call penalties, detect offside violations, and make other consequential decisions.

The video assistant referee system known as VAR, and the semi-automatic offside technique (SAOT) were used in soccer For years. But the build-up to this summer’s World Cup represents some of the most advanced uses of refereeing technology to date, not just in football, but in all high-level sports.

During each match, the stadium will be filled with new sensors, cameras and computer vision software. One particularly notable development this year is the use of digital twins. Every World Cup player’s body was scanned by a computer. An athlete’s digital twin — which precisely matches his height, limb length and shoe size — can be dropped into a virtual simulation of the game to determine his exact position relative to the ball, boundary lines and other players. Officials can use all this data to help detect violations, assign penalties, and iron out aspects of the beautiful game.

Although these systems can study the action more closely than is possible with the human eye, flesh-and-blood referees are still part of the game. But when referees make mistakes – which they do, ask any fan – and their decisions are challenged, officials can turn to technology to correct any errors, replacing subjective calls with objective facts.

These systems are primarily used to detect major errors, such as checking to see if a particular player was offside during a play that resulted in a match-deciding goal being scored. But teams can often request that unimportant plays be reviewed. It raises the question of where the value of the system lies: in casting an impartial look at pivotal moments, or in allowing the league to adjudicate small infractions that occur an inch here or an inch there.

FIFA and other soccer agencies around the world have made their position clear on the subject: they want to get rid of big mistakes, sure, but those inches matter a lot, too.

The eyes have

Elements of this year’s setup are similar to the 2022 World Cup, but with upgrades. Hawk eye It remains the provider of visual tracking of the event, with its computer vision system capturing over twenty structural points for each player at all times. Johannes Holzmüller, FIFA’s innovation director, says the tracking system uses 16 high-resolution cameras this time compared to 12 in 2022.

As in 2022, that visual data will be combined with advanced sensors inside the ball itself. kenexona leader in sports wearables, will once again provide the digital brain of the match ball. This time it will include a wide-area sensor setup and an IMU (including an accelerometer and gyroscope, the latter essential for picking up the ball’s spin) that tracks the precise location of the ball and any distinct touches, recording these data points 500 times per second.

The 2022 version of the ball sensor is suspended in the middle of the inside of the ball, supported by a series of ropes made by Adidas, which also makes the ball itself. But this time, Adidas has created a small bladder to hold the sensor located along the inner wall of the ball.

“It is vulcanized inside the bladder with a small plastic bag,” says Maximilian Schmidt, co-founder and managing director of Kenexon. “This vulcanization is much more stable than those strings, which have hooks that can break more easily.”

However, placing the sensor along the inside wall of the ball instead of the center requires some balancing, so that the extra weight on one side of the ball doesn’t cause it to wobble. While Schmidt says the entire device weighs just 13 grams, his team had to calibrate everything to ensure every touch or movement of the ball was tracked evenly. Because the sensor was now in a place where it could be kicked directly, testing for a more aggressive impact was an essential part of the process.