Fully Automatic Time

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A Fully Automatic Time is used when timing sporting events, most commonly athletics (Track & Field), Horse Racing, Dog Racing, or anyting with a start/finish line. Also known as FAT or Fully Automatic Timing, it requires the use of a sensor attached to the starting device used to start the clock, and an evalutaion of an image to determine a time. Any method involving a human starting or stopping the timing device manually cannot claim to be a true FAT system.

Methods used in the Olympics and other events use a Digital Line-Scan Camera. This camera has an image sensor only a few pixels wide. When the sensor is placed on the finish line (commonly painted white or some other color), the camera scans the line at anywhere from 100-10,000 lines per second depending on the operator setting, assigns a time to each scan, then assembles the scans in time-order to form an image that can be evaluated using a variety of proprietary software that comes with the timing system.

Video-based systems also exists, however they cost less due to the limitation that VHS and SVHS frame rates have in relation to timing every hundreth of a second.

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