Hi! I currently have a university project where we are going to measure activity on soccer fields, the more specific the data is the better. I have googled a ton and found a couple of interesting ideas that I wish to pursue.
Measuring vibrations in the ground to get an idea of the amount of people on the pitch.
Using IR-camera to measure the activity, although my understanding is that it might not work during sunlight and the size of the pitch is a big issue.
Since I'm completely new to ardunio it's difficult for me to estimate the feasibility of this project with these approaches, has anyone done anything similar or have experience and can give me input on these approaches? Is there a more reasonable approach I'm not seeing?
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The goal is not to produce an exact number of people on the pitch at different times, instead the goal is to get an idea of how much the pitch is used.
The ideal solution is relatively cheap (I know, subjective), flexible in the sense that it should be easy to move from pitch to pitch and gives reliable data.
I think this is a complex problem and would need some sort of image processing from above or digging the pitch up for a matrix of sensors .
That is the complex side of it , and needs specifying and coming up with a solution.
You need to research what sort of equipment is out there - but I’d guess that’s what you get marks for ...
Most of the pitches around here have artificial grass so digging up the pitch is unfortunately not an option. I have also considered a matrix of lasers in order to measure the activity on the pitch, however the distance seems to be a problem again. I'm just looking for input on the feasibility of the project and possible approaches since I have no experience with arduino, is a project like this possible with the computational power of arduino? I'm guessing it depends on the chosen approach.
Could measuring activity in the scale of a soccerpitch be possible with a camera like OV4689?
I have the issue here , that if this is a University project - you need to be researching and developing the techniques it rather than asking others on a hobby forum how to do it - seems to defeat the educational aspects of your work .
The Arduino part is secondary to the task , what computational power you need depends on your sensing method .
Thank you for your concern, however I see this as a part of my research. This is not the only solution we are investigating. Asking more informed and experienced individuals for advice does not seem as cheating to me. As I am sure you can see, I am not asking for a complete answer with instructions.
Asking around is a common and very useful part of research, and sharing of ideas is very much the core of the maker movement. Closely related is finding existing solutions to a problem and figuring out how they work. Both can give great inspiration towards solving the problem at hand.
OP of course still has to vet the different ideas posted here and do research on whether it is feasible for their specific application, whether they have the ability to implement it, whether it is within budget, etc.