The need for speed: How AI is driving faster cars for VCARB Formula One team | Computer Weekly
Summary
Formula One cars are packed with more than 300 sensors, recording every tiny variation that affects its speed – from aerodynamics to ride height to air temperature and pressure, vibrations, bodywork stresses, engine performance and the condition of the tyres. The second one is a bit less known but has a mega impact in Formula One.” Mekies says the gap in performance between the fastest and the slowest of the 10 teams on the F1 grid is smaller than it has ever been, and the need to find marginal gains is, as a result, greater than ever. Advances in AI have presented teams with a fresh opportunity to enhance their operations and performance at every stage of their business, from design through manufacturing to race day and competitive analysis The advances in AI in recent years have presented teams with a fresh opportunity to enhance their operations and performance at every stage of their business, from design through manufacturing to race day and competitive analysis, as Mekies explained when Computer Weekly was invited to go behind the scenes at VCARB’s factory in Faenza, Italy, before a Grand Prix at the famous Imola track, the team’s local race. For example, as well as limits on the use of wind tunnels, teams have restrictions on the number of hours of work they can complete using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, which helps to model the aerodynamic performance of the car. “So we need to make sure that we, as a sport, are attractive enough to get all these guys to want to come here to do the ground-breaking stuff that they want to do.” In corporate IT, people talk about keeping a “human in the loop” where AI is introduced.