System and method for three dimensional object tracking using combination of radar and image data

A method comprising:

• obtaining two dimensional image data of a golf ball in flight, the two dimensional image data originating from a camera;
• obtaining radar data of the golf ball in flight, the radar data originating from a Doppler radar device associated with the camera;
• interpolating the radar data to generate interpolated radar data of the golf ball in flight;
• and
• blending radial distance information derived from the interpolated radar data of the golf ball in flight with angular distance information derived from the two dimensional image data of the golf ball in flight to form three dimensional location information of the golf ball in three dimensional space.

A system comprising:

• a sensor unit comprising an object tracking camera and a Doppler radar device, which are aligned with each other and integrated into a shared sensor housing;
• and
• a computer comprising a hardware processor and a memory coupled with the hardware processor, the memory encoding instructions configured to cause the hardware processor to fit a curve to radar data originating from the Doppler radar device to extrapolate the radar data to a continuous function of time for a golf ball in flight, and the instructions configured to cause the hardware processor to, for each of a plurality of camera observations of the golf ball in two dimensional image data originating from the object tracking camera,
• find a radial distance to the golf ball using the continuous function and a time of the camera observation, and
• calculate a three dimensional location of the golf ball in space using the radial distance and details of the camera observation.

A computer program product, encoded on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, operable to cause data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

• obtaining two dimensional image data of a golf ball in flight, the two dimensional image data originating from a camera;
• obtaining radar data of the golf ball in flight, the radar data originating from a Doppler radar device associated with the camera;
• interpolating the radar data to generate interpolated radar data of the golf ball in flight;
• and
• blending radial distance information derived from the interpolated radar data of the golf ball in flight with angular distance information derived from the two dimensional image data of the golf ball in flight to form three dimensional location information of the golf ball in three dimensional space.