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'Telecommuting' In Formula 1

Posted by kdawson on from the telemetry-at-a-distance dept.

flewp writes "This New York Times article on Formula 1 racing gives some insight into the workings of one of the most high-tech sports on the planet — consider that a few years ago, Sauber's supercomputer ranked toward the top of all the supercomputers in Europe. The teams bring to each race dozens of mechanics, support personnel, etc.; but back at their home bases, perhaps thousands of miles away, countless more engineers work (with the help of gobs of computing power) to give each team that extra edge."

3 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Remote driving by LambdaWolf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's interesting, but I'll really be interested when they invent a motor sport where the cars are driven remotely. I'm thinking of kind of a virtual reality rig where the controls simulate being inside the car. No one would go for this in the present types of auto racing even if it were allowed, since they would have a disadvantage even if the technology advanced considerably: the driver would lack certain kinds of information from sound and touch, not to mention signal lag.

    But imagine if there were a separate motor sport where everyone drives that way. Not only would the technology itself be cool, but think of how much more riskily they could drive without any danger to human life. It's my understanding that drivers are always trying to push the envelope that way anyway (and the rules have to be revised to push back in the direction of safety), so presumably it would expand the sport with different machinery and perhaps new techniques that would be too dangerous otherwise. And the crash-happy spectators would certainly like it, and might feel less like ghouls for enjoying the spectacular destruction of machinery without the uncomfortable reality that there's a human being in there. (Or is that the appeal? I don't know.)

    Also, we need to build military vehicles that work the same way. On the ground, that is—Predator drones already kick ass.

    --
    "This algorithm runs in constant time. Come on, 2,147,483,648 is a constant..."
    1. Re:Remote driving by Risha · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Interestingly, apparently some of the drivers have trained for unfamiliar tracks using... GT4, I think? And Speed had an amusing segment a few years ago where they filmed a driver (Nico Rosburg?) do a virtual run all the way around the track with his eyes closed, with an accompanying feed showing that it would be very nearly a perfect run on the real thing.

    2. Re:Remote driving by Weedhopper · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Heh, you're preaching to the choir.

      I have an extremely strong neck. I've been a competitive judo player and wrestler since I could walk and one of the first things an experience training partner or opponent notices about me is my neck strength.

      I've driven, co-driven and pre-run some fairly competitive Group N rallies - Safari Rally, Pearl of Africa (rarely finished, never placed). I'd say my neck strength endurance is about average for a upper nationals rally driver.

      The neck strength required for F-1 is an order of magnitude higher. Most people don't quite literally physically don't have what it takes to take an F-1 car around just half a lap without either hurting themselves or stalling out.