Formel 1 / Formula One

Claus Michael Sattler - CA Unicenter TNG & McLaren

Im Rah­men eines Spon­so­ren-Enga­ge­ments eines Soft­ware-Her­stel­lers in der For­mel 1 durf­te ich gemein­sam mit ande­ren IT-Exper­ten an der schnel­len Ana­ly­se und deren Kor­re­la­ti­on mit­tels einer Manage­ment­soft­ware arbei­ten, die ursprüng­lich für das Netz­werk- und Sys­tem-Manage­ment von hete­ro­ge­nen, ver­teil­ten IT-Land­schaf­ten ent­wi­ckelt wurde.
In die­sem Pro­jekt konn­te ich sowohl als Zwei­rad­me­cha­ni­ker-Meis­ter mei­ne Fach­kennt­nis­se aus der Mecha­nik und dem Moto­ren-Manage­ment ein­brin­gen, als auch mein gesam­tes IT-Know How inkl. der ein­ge­setz­ten Hard­ware und Soft­ware, u.a. des genutz­ten Sys­tems für Netz­werk- und Sys­tem-Manage­ment. So konn­ten die Ana­ly­sen für das opti­ma­le Set­up des For­mel 1‑Fahrzeuges bin­nen weni­ger Sekun­den errech­net wer­den und der For­mel 1‑Bolide an die Bedin­gun­gen vor Ort ange­passt wer­den. Das Set­up des Autos wur­de in den kur­zen Pau­sen der Trai­nings und des Qua­li­fyings möglich.

Team McLaren uses CA technology

© by CA Com­pu­ter Associates
 
Com­pu­ter Asso­cia­tes Inter­na­tio­nal, Inc. (CA), the world’s lea­ding eBusi­ness solu­ti­ons pro­vi­der announ­ced today that West McLa­ren Mer­ce­des, deve­lo­per of the MP4/15 For­mu­la 1 racing car, is imple­men­ting CA’s Uni­cen­ter TNG-based Data Trans­port Opti­on. The world-class soft­ware pro­tects and com­mu­ni­ca­tes giga­bytes of vital race and test data from For­mu­la 1 tracks and gara­ges, to the McLa­ren Inter­na­tio­nal Head­quar­ters in Woking, Eng­land for immedia­te real time analysis.

When every split second counts, opti­mi­zing car set-up in the most effi­ci­ent way can mean the dif­fe­rence bet­ween win­ning and losing. CA’s Data Trans­port Opti­on allows engi­neers to reli­ab­ly encrypt and send, via satel­li­te, tele­me­try data collec­ted from the car, like sus­pen­si­on tra­vel and engi­ne per­for­mance, from track-side any­whe­re in the world back to team head­quar­ters in real-time for immedia­te and com­ple­te analysis.
Working in tan­dem, engi­neers at the advan­ced com­pu­ting, high-tech head­quar­ters in Woking can ana­ly­ze and cor­re­la­te vital tele­me­try infor­ma­ti­on and immedia­te­ly send sug­ges­ti­ons back to the engi­neers and mecha­nics at the track in order to maxi­mi­ze the racing car’s per­for­mance during the Grand Prix or the test session.
Tech­no­lo­gy part­ners, CA and McLa­ren con­ti­nue to stri­ve towards a third tit­le fol­lowing con­se­cu­ti­ve cham­pions­hips in 1998 and 1999. In 1997 McLa­ren imple­men­ted CA’s enter­pri­se manage­ment soft­ware, Uni­cen­ter TNG, to pro­vi­de the dri­vers, engi­neers and the pit crew with a 3D, intui­ti­ve, vir­tu­al view of the car’s tele­me­try data and the abi­li­ty to prompt­ly ana­ly­ze and cor­re­la­te over 50 mega­bytes of com­plex data collec­ted in a sin­gle Grand Prix weekend.
In 1998, CA imple­men­ted the mul­ti­me­dia and net­wor­king capa­bi­li­ties of Jas­min­eii enab­ling engi­neers to inte­gra­te com­plex new data with his­to­ri­cal data into one repo­si­to­ry. With access to enough his­to­ri­cal infor­ma­ti­on, the team is able to run the car around many cir­cuits in full-detail simu­la­ti­on, opti­mi­zing every varia­ble. By the time the car’s wheels hit the real sur­face of a given cir­cuit, the vehicle’s set-up will have alrea­dy been fine-tun­ed to match the pre­vai­ling con­di­ti­ons, based on his­to­ri­cal best-per­for­mance set-ups.