How the 94Fifty smart basketball uses TI wireless technology

    by Mark Davidson, President of InfoMotion Sports Technologies

    Earlier this year, we at InfoMotion announced the 94Fifty Sensor Basketball, the first digital sports product in basketball history. It records every move of a basketball, from ball handling to shooting. To do this, we developed state-of-the-art hardware that leverages Texas Instruments’ chip connectivity solutions to accurately measure the trajectory of the ball. Since launching in late February 2013, our project has raised more than $130,000 on Kickstarter and has received support from the Amateur Athletic Union and the Basketball Coaches Association. Today, I won’t go into that, but I’ll tell you what’s inside the high-tech basketball besides air.

 
The brain

    of the 94Fifty is TI’s TMS320C5515 ultra-low-power fixed-point DSP, which has a small package size and powerful real-time processing capabilities. The DSP can process and organize the data of dribbling and shooting movements in real time, and transmit this data to the mobile device via Bluetooth. The sensor data comes from nine inertial sensors.

Wireless Charging

    The 94Fifty basketball is wirelessly charged—it's impossible to replace the battery in a basketball. Our wireless transmission uses TI's Qi standard wireless charging receiver system (BQ51014). TI's wireless charging solution has a small size (1.9×3mm DSBG package) and minimal component requirements, making it easy to place in a small basketball. We developed a receiving antenna designed with flexible printed circuit board technology specifically for the basketball, which can be embedded in the basketball's surface. This technology makes the 94Fifty feel the same as a standard basketball. The power supply uses the BQ500210 solution. The

connectivity

    of the 94Fifty must be good, so we use TI's single-chip Bluetooth/Bluetooth low-power chip CC2564, which can easily connect to Android or iOS devices. In addition, we have received great assistance from TI's third-party StonestreetOne to provide a software stack library.

    Now that you have the basketball data, you can use this data to improve your skills and share this data and learning experience with your friends.

    Reference: http://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/connecting_wirelessly/archive/2013/08/30/the-teched-out-basketball-that-has-it-all-a-look-inside.aspx

 

    For more maker articles, please visit the TI Wireless Technology Zone.