Telemetry system connects race cars with pit
In motor sports, a time difference of a few hundredths or even thousandths of a second often decides between victory and defeat. During the development and tuning work on the racing cars, the teams’ engineers are therefore constantly working at the limits of physics and technology. One of their most indispensable tools are telemetry systems, which are used to send data and measured values from the vehicle to the racing team’s back-end computers. These computers are located directly in the pits or in the development department, for example, so that the race engineers can precisely adjust the settings of the vehicle during the race or training. “With RaceConnect, Bosch Motorsport has developed a holistic telemetry solution that enables racing teams to transmit, store and post-process all relevant real-time data from the vehicles, regardless of location,” says Timo Blon, Director Portfolio Strategy and Systems Engineering at Bosch Motorsport. Crucial race data and parameters of the vehicle, chassis and drive can be analyzed and optimized quickly and efficiently.
To be able to use the new telemetry system, racing teams install the LTE65 telemetry modem from Bosch as a transmission unit in their racing cars. The extremely small and lightweight component is connected directly to the vehicle electronics via the standardized Ethernet or RS232 interfaces. In the LTE mobile phone network the modem then transmits all the desired data end-to-end to the cloud of the RaceConnect architecture. From there they go – also via LTE and end-to-end secured – to the data engineers and the racing team for further processing.
One LTE65 modem is always used per vehicle. RaceConnect customers can operate any number of modems in parallel and use them for data evaluation. This considerably reduces the workload for racing teams, especially if they use several vehicles. Configuration and management of the individual telemetry modems is carried out using a user interface in the cloud. The firmware is maintained and updated by Bosch so that customers can keep their system up to date with updates.
Bosch has designed the LTE65 modem specifically for use in motorsports. “For example, the electronics developed and manufactured in-house offer low latencies and extremely reliable data transmission even at high vehicle speeds and fluctuating network coverage,” says Blon. The compact system, which measures just 114 x 65.5 x 22 mm and weighs 180 g, is dust and waterproof in accordance with IP67. It can be diagnosed and has a built-in emergency power supply to bridge short-term voltage drops in the vehicle electrical system. The system meets all data security requirements and is of course certified for use in the LTE mobile radio network.
Bosch offers the RaceConnect telemetry system as a complete package. Customers receive two LTE65 modems with SIM cards and data plans, either for the mobile phone network in Europe or for the network in the USA, as well as access to the RaceConnect portal. In the future, it will also be possible to receive the data via a web-based portal. “Thanks to its high flexibility and simple handling, the RaceConnect system is suitable for all motorsport classes with corresponding regulations, from the IndyCar series to sports car races, but also for test runs in the preparation phase,” says Blon.
More information: https://www.bosch-presse.de/pressportal/de/en/tag/mobility-solutions/
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