Formula 1 Communication Technology

I’ve said it before: I’m not a racing fan. And yet, I’ve already written about it twice before and here I go again. This post, like the others, focuses on the technical aspects of the sport.

According to this BBC story, data analysis has become more and more important in a race. The cars have about 150 sensors that provide telemetry on a assortment of measures such as tire pressure, drag, aerodynamic down pressure and many others. It takes a lot of engineers to analyze and interpret this data in real time and relay their findings to the driver.

Unfortunately, the Formula 1 governing body restricts the number of support personnel, including engineers, who can be at trackside to 60. That doesn’t leave enough room for all the engineers needed to work with the data so they moved the analysis back to the factory. This remote analysis necessitates a high speed data link, which turns out to be surprisingly difficult to provide. Communication providers have to set up and tear down facilities at each race site, which are located all over the world.

One provider, Tata Communications uses two teams. One dealing with things at the current race site and the other setting up the next site. Network latency ranges from 7 to 300 milliseconds, depending on distance from the factory. Data rates can sometimes exceed 100 gigabytes a second.

If you enjoy seeing how technology can be brought to bear on problems that don’t seem, at first glance, technological, give the article a read. It’s short and interesting.

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