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TECHNOLOGY – DATABYTES


Calling all cars Data stations and garage networks


Databytes gives insights to help you improve your data analysis skills each month as Cosworth’s electronics engineers share tips and tweaks learned from years of experience with data systems. Plus we test your skills with a teaser each month


To allow you to view the images at a larger size they can now be found at www.racecar- engineering.com/ databytes


Computers have become an integral part of running almost any type of racecar these days and it is more than likely that you will find a laptop close to one, even at the local drag strip or sprint track. As you progress up the ladder, in whichever series you compete, the cars generally become more complex and the engineering starts to get more involved. This inevitably means more data and even more computer involvement. At the top levels of racing, you will find teams will be running some form of data station for each of their cars and that a dedicated engineer is looking after this data station at all times. These form an integral part of


a garage network that centres around running the racecar. The data station will often have two monitors, one connected to a server on a garage network, which


The ‘umbilical cord’ is the lifeline between the racecar and the engineers in the garage, connecting all the systems on the racecar with a single harness


will hold data, video and set-up information for the team’s vehicles. A second screen could then be connected to a laptop as a monitor for the data engineer or race engineer. There are, of course, different variations of data station available, depending on how teams prefer to run their


systems. There could, for example, be one large main screen with telemetry information for all vehicles, along with a TV feed. In most cases, the bulk of the work done at the data station will be carried out using laptops as they allow engineers to carry their work around with them.


Figure 1: typical view of a live telemetry window. Tyre data is shown as raw numbers and bitfields indicate if there is a problem. Trends are then monitored using live graphs and summary tables


July 2012 • www.racecar-engineering.com 47


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