This is an amazing bit of technology in use at Indian Wells... The Spidercam system allows television cameras to move both vertically and horizontally over an area, such as a football field or a tennis court... The Spidercam system is modeled after Skycam, which was invented in the United States in 1984.
Spidercam operates with four motorized winches positioned at each corner of the stadium, each of which controls a Kevlar cable connected to a gyro-stabilized camera-carrier. By controlling the winding and unwinding of the cables, the system allows the camera to reach any position in the three-dimensional space. The Spidercam "pilot" commands are processed by software which forwards the commands to the winches via fiber optic cables. Two of the Kevlar cables also have fiber optic cables woven into them to carry commands to the camera and the remote head, and bring the camera's high definition signal back to the control station. The remote head, which houses the camera, provides pan and tilt movement and includes the lens remote which controls focus, zoom and irising. A gyro sensor in the dolly stabilises the horizon. A specially trained Spidercam camera operator controls the camera.
