DIY AI-powered football tracking camera - looking for feedback and improvement ideas

Hey all. I’ve been working on a DIY camera system that can automatically track football games, sort of like what the Veo camera does, but built from scratch using cheap off-the-shelf parts. Here’s the basic setup: An Orange Pi 5 as the brain of the system, running tracking software A GoPro camera mounted onto a pan-tilt bracket (2 servos) The servos are controlled by a PCA9685 driver board One power bank powers the Orange Pi, and a second powers the servos The whole thing mounts onto a tripod and automatically records while tracking the movement on the pitch I’ve written a script that starts on boot, so once it’s all connected and powered on, it begins running without needing a screen or keyboard. The tracking software uses computer vision to follow the action based on player and ball movement, recording everything in 4K. After the game, I can zoom in digitally if the action is far away, then edit or export to 1080p. The whole thing costs around £200 depending on parts and power banks. I will be testing it in real match situations and trying to improve the tracking smoothness and response time. Would anyone here ever consider using something like this over a commercial system like Veo? I’d love to hear your thoughts - both on the concept and anything you’d suggest to improve the build or tracking. Thanks in advance. submitted by /u/joe18122010 [link] [comments]

Apr 11, 2025 - 21:09

Hey all. I’ve been working on a DIY camera system that can automatically track football games, sort of like what the Veo camera does, but built from scratch using cheap off-the-shelf parts.

Here’s the basic setup:

An Orange Pi 5 as the brain of the system, running tracking software
A GoPro camera mounted onto a pan-tilt bracket (2 servos)
The servos are controlled by a PCA9685 driver board
One power bank powers the Orange Pi, and a second powers the servos
The whole thing mounts onto a tripod and automatically records while tracking the movement on the pitch

I’ve written a script that starts on boot, so once it’s all connected and powered on, it begins running without needing a screen or keyboard. The tracking software uses computer vision to follow the action based on player and ball movement, recording everything in 4K. After the game, I can zoom in digitally if the action is far away, then edit or export to 1080p.

The whole thing costs around £200 depending on parts and power banks. I will be testing it in real match situations and trying to improve the tracking smoothness and response time.

Would anyone here ever consider using something like this over a commercial system like Veo? I’d love to hear your thoughts - both on the concept and anything you’d suggest to improve the build or tracking.

Thanks in advance.

submitted by /u/joe18122010
[link] [comments]