Change in race car communications

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n4voxgill

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From www.forbes.com which is part of forbes magazine the following story:

Wireless
The Indy 500 Goes Wireless
David M. Ewalt, 05.27.05, 6:00 AM ET

Auto racing goes wireless on Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Professional motor sports have never been a solo pursuit. Drivers may be alone in their vehicles, but they're backed up by huge teams of mechanics and experts who watch and analyze their every move. The best racers know they can push their car to the limit because the guys in the pits are keeping it in perfect shape.

That relationship moves to a new level on Sunday, when two cars from the Red Bull Cheever Racing team compete in the Indianapolis 500, armed with a cutting-edge Internet Protocol-based wireless system that gives the entire team access to a wealth of real-time information and communications during the race.

The Toyota Motor (nyse: TM - news - people )-powered Dallara race cars--No. 51, driven by Alex Barron, and No. 83, driven by Patrick Carpentier--may be the most high-tech vehicles yet to hit "The Brickyard."

"Our type of racing is very technologically advanced," says Eddy Cheever, the team's owner, who drove to a win in the 1998 Indy 500. "We use telemetry to extract live data from the cars and send it back." Cheever and his team used to equip their cars with sensors that would monitor the vehicle's vital signs send them back to the pits using RF transmitters.

That intelligence helped mechanics know how the car was performing and allowed them to plan better for the maintenance they'd do when it stopped for refueling. But there were problems with the system, which couldn't handle large amounts of information and didn't have great range. "We were very limited in what we could do," says Cheever. "At Indy, the telemetry would go dark on part of the track."

So the Cheever team replaced their existing system with new Internet Protocol-based hardware from Cisco (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people ). The speedway has been equipped with Cisco Aironet 1300 series wireless access points at each turn and the start and finish lines, helping maintain constant contact with the cars. More access points in the team suite, garage and engineering trailer allow race data to be disseminated quickly to everyone who needs it. It all allows the team to keep up more reliable, robust connections, as well as send far greater amounts of information.

"If before we could extract three telephone books worth of data, now we're extracting about thirty," says Cheever. "The amount of information we're getting from these cars, it's like we're sending them to the moon." Sensors in the tires send pressure readings every eight seconds, helping the team avoid blowouts. Engineers can monitor the drag on different parts of the car and adjust spoilers when the car stops to improve its aerodynamic profile.

The system also allows for direct audio and video connections, allowing the team to watch video streams of the driver or actually see different parts of the car in motion to monitor their performance. They can use Cisco 7920 wireless voice-over-Internet Protocol phones to talk to the drivers or to mechanics back in the garage. And since it's all based on an IP system, it's easy for the team to network in multiple sites, pits and even offsite labs. "We could take all this information and send it over the Internet to Toyota's engineers in Tokyo," says Cheever.

In the even more sophisticated world of Formula 1 racing, the big racing teams have also been experimenting with similar wireless systems.

All this data doesn't just help out the guys in the pit crew--it makes the job of the driver a lot easier, too. "I think it allows the driver to focus more on just driving and not have to manipulate things inside the car," says Cheever. "It's a lot more efficient. We took all our old radios and threw them in the garbage can."

Now that the system is in place, Cheever's starting to look ahead to future races and plan what kinds of new sensors and capabilities he could add to the vehicles. "We are really at the start of this," he says. "Now that we've developed a platform where we can plug in all these different IP sensors, there's infinite possibilities."

This could be bad news to people using scanners at race tracks. Gill
 

Dubbin

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n4voxgill said:
This could be bad news to people using scanners at race tracks. Gill
Yes it could be bad for people that want to listen to IRL and CART but you will not see it happening in NASCAR. I really don't see it becoming a problem anyway.
 

Voyager

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n4voxgill said:
This could be bad news to people using scanners at race tracks. Gill

Why? I don't see anything in there about communications other than the telemetry that has always been digital. So they can pass even more data today than before. It's not like the scanner listener can USE any of that - no matter how much or how little there is.

Joe M.
 

K5MAR

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Voyager said:
n4voxgill said:
This could be bad news to people using scanners at race tracks. Gill

Why? I don't see anything in there about communications other than the telemetry that has always been digital. So they can pass even more data today than before. It's not like the scanner listener can USE any of that - no matter how much or how little there is.

Joe M.

You missed this line:
They can use Cisco 7920 wireless voice-over-Internet Protocol phones to talk to the drivers or to mechanics back in the garage.

But this is those tea-sipping Indy Car/Formula 1 teams, not our red-blooded good ol' boy NASCAR teams! :lol: They'd never do this in NASCAR! (Would they? :? )

Mark S.
 

Voyager

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K5MAR said:
You missed this line:
They can use Cisco 7920 wireless voice-over-Internet Protocol phones to talk to the drivers or to mechanics back in the garage.

But this is those tea-sipping Indy Car/Formula 1 teams, not our red-blooded good ol' boy NASCAR teams! :lol: They'd never do this in NASCAR! (Would they? :? )

Mark S.

Yes, I did.

Now, does NASCAR make enough from the sale of scanners to prohibit the drivers from doing something like this?

What does this say for the NASCAR branded scanners?

Joe M.
 

unitcharlie

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I don't thnk NASCAR is that out-of-touch with their fan base... part of the fun of NASCAR is following the foibles of the cars as they zoom around the track.... besides, where'd ya put the moonshine in an INDY car?
 

jplyler

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NASCAR will never allow this type of communication. There is absolutely NO data or telemetry systems in use during the race weekend. NASCAR won't even allow scrambled comms (although some teams use inversion on occasion). I work for one of the top organizations in NASCAR and none of our radios even have a inversion chip in them. NASCAR listens to every driver and team during the race and they want to make sure they can hear what's going on at all times.

Jon
 

K5MAR

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jplyler said:
NASCAR will never allow this type of communication. There is absolutely NO data or telemetry systems in use during the race weekend. NASCAR won't even allow scrambled comms (although some teams use inversion on occasion). I work for one of the top organizations in NASCAR and none of our radios even have a inversion chip in them. NASCAR listens to every driver and team during the race and they want to make sure they can hear what's going on at all times.

Jon

Thanks, Jon!!

Whew! :lol:

Mark S.
 

scanfan03

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n4voxgill said:
"We took all our old radios and threw them in the garbage can."

Ahh man, those wasteful people, they could give those radios to me!!!....... It will go to a good cause!! :p
 

CARBOSS303

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NASCAR RADIO

During Sunday nights race a spotter wanted to talk to his crew chief but wanted privacy, so instead of using his radio he called him on the crewchief's cell phone so no one else could hear
 

RagnarD

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Hi Folks,

I too heard the comments on TV about the spotter asking the crew chief to call him on the cell phone.

Not wanting to hijack this thread but remember the title $pon$or for NA$CAR's top division is Nextel.

I do not think that Nextel would want it's customer to use a product such as Cisco Systems Call Manager Suite for communications even between the NA$CAR officials and race control. Too cumbersome and much more expensive than a plain old uhf handheld or even a mobile phone with some type of traditional radio embedded into it.

My vocation is networking and we are doing alot of Voice Over IP right now and it is a lot of work getting the network tuned appropriately to provide acceptable voice quality.

For any wireless deployment to be successful there are alot of things to consider in the site survey. Access point overlap and roaming between A/P's, power output of the A/Ps, channel spacing, "Outside" R/F interference, etc. These things are even more critical if deploying VOIP within the same infrastructure. A/P density increases if integrating voice and data in a wireless network.

The access points (that are in the unlicensed portion of the spectrum) have to comply with Part 15 so they are prone to interference. Just because something worked yesterday does not mean it will work today. We are working on this exact issue at one of our locations in Florida right now.

Based on these things I assume that the 7900 Series phones referred to in the news article are for driver and crew convenience and not for actual race condition communications. A "wireless" phone is a great tool for someone to walk around with and use at their convenience at the speedway.

It does make sense however in a new construction pit/paddock area or anyplace that is a "greenfield" type of scenario that would require a new telephony system to deploy a product such as Call Manager.

If I were Nextel I would bring a mobile cell site to each venue and use my own services.

What I am really surprised about is that teams do not use trunked radio systems like Pro-Voice or something along those lines to keep competitors from listening.

Just my .02

73
de
chris
kq4z
 

K5MAR

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kq4z said:
What I am really surprised about is that teams do not use trunked radio systems like Pro-Voice or something along those lines to keep competitors from listening.

I think jplyler's post answers this:
NASCAR won't even allow scrambled comms (although some teams use inversion on occasion). I work for one of the top organizations in NASCAR and none of our radios even have a inversion chip in them. NASCAR listens to every driver and team during the race and they want to make sure they can hear what's going on at all times.

Nascar isn't going to want to have to fool around with monitoring multiple radio types. Straight analog would seem to be the simplest way to go. And anything that Nascar can hear, everybody else will also.

Mark S.
 
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N_Jay

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NA$CAR is not a sport, its a $how!

The "Production Company" has to keep tabs on all the actors!
 

kb2vxa

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Hi K5 and race fans,

"But this is those tea-sipping Indy Car/Formula 1 teams, not our red-blooded good ol' boy NASCAR teams!"

If you have a CB whip on your car and shine in the tank,
you might be a redneck, good ol'boy NASCAR driver.

I'm sure Jeff will forgive me, he's a good ol' boy who knows the origins of NASCAR I'm sure.

"Money, big money buys all else, people, places, things, even more money."
Robert A. Heinlein (blert)
 
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