A method to identify defensive assignments in team-based invasion sports using spatiotemporal trajectories
Yoran E. Leichsenring, Rafael Stubs Parpinelli, Fabiano Baldo · International Journal of Geographical Information Systems · 2020
Several works in GIScience propose approaches to identify general motion patterns through the analysis of objects’ trajectories. However, they are not suitable to identify functional relationships in scenarios where domain-dependent motion behaviors exist. In this work, we explore the identification of a particular pattern found in team-based invasion sports. We propose a method to identify defensive assignments between players of opposite teams based on the analysis of their trajectories. A defensive assignment happens when a defensive player blocks or hinders the progress of an opponent player inside his/her field. The defensive assignment can be classified as a behavioral pattern because it combines other behavioral patterns, such as pursuit, evasion, attack and defense. The identification of the assignments takes into account the following aspects of the players’ trajectories: proximity, position, speed and direction. The assessments pointed out that the method provides promising results, achieving 84% of success rate when compared with the analysis of a human specialist.