Cameras, Sensors, and 3D Body Scans: All the Technology to Help Eliminate Explosive Phones

In 2026 World Cupreferees and officials on the sideline will be able to use more technology to help call penalties, spot fouls, and make other important decisions.

Video assistant referees, known as VAR, and semi-automated offside technology (SAOT) will be used ball for years. But the launch of this summer’s World Cup represents some of the most advanced refereeing technology to date, not just in football, but in all of professional sports.

For each game, the sound system is loaded with sensors, cameras, and new computer vision software. The most notable advancement this year is the use of digital twins. Every player in the World Cup had their body scanned by a computer. Each athlete’s digital twin—matched exactly to his height, leg length, and shoe size—can be thrown into the game’s simulation to determine his exact position relative to the ball, the boundary lines, and other players. Officials can use all of this data to help spot fouls, determine penalties, and improve the edge of the game.

Although these systems can learn more about what’s going on than the human eye can, physical and blood displays are still part of the game. But when critics get it wrong — which they do, they ask every fan — and their decisions are challenged, officials can turn to technology to correct any mistakes, rather than making phone calls with facts.

The machine is often used to catch serious fouls, such as checking to see if a player was offside during a game that led to a game-tying decision. But teams often end up calling for unnecessary replays. It raises the question of where the benefit of the system lies: bringing an impartial eye to the most important moments, or allowing the league to judge minor mistakes of an inch here or an inch there.

FIFA and the rest of the world’s football governing bodies have made their point on the matter clear: They want the big mistakes to go away, sure, but those inches are so important.

The Eyes Are There

The conditions set for this year are the same as the 2022 World Cup, but with an upgrade. Hawk’s eye he is still the provider of the event, with his computer monitor system that takes more than twelve points per player at all times. The tracking system uses 16 high-definition cameras this time compared to 12 in 2022, FIFA chief technical officer Johannes Holzmüller says.

And as in 2022, this light data will be combined with advanced sensors inside the ball. Kinexona leader in sportswear, has also provided the digital brain of match football. This time will also include an ultrawide-band system and an IMU sensor (including an accelerometer and a gyroscope, the last of which is very important to catch the ball) that monitors the exact position of the ball and every touch, recording the points 500 times per second.

The 2022 version of the ball sensor is suspended in the center of the ball, with the help of a cable made by Adidas, which also manufactures the ball. This time, however, Adidas created a small bladder to hold the sensor that is placed inside the wall of the ball.

“It dissolves in the bladder with a small plastic bag,” says Maximillian Schmidt, founder and CEO of Kinexon. “This interference is more stable than those ropes, which had hooks that could easily break.”

Placing the sensor on the inside wall of the ball instead of in the middle, however, requires a mismatch so that extra weight on one side of the ball doesn’t cause it to vibrate. While Schmidt says the entire setup weighs just 13 grams, his team had to fine-tune everything to ensure that every touch or movement of the ball is tracked equally. And because the sensor is now in a position where it can be hit directly, high-energy testing was an important part of the process.