Advanced technology including global connectivity services from US telecommunications giant AT&T will play a critical part in Australian Daniel Ricciardo’s attempt to win the Australian grand prix in Melbourne this weekend in his newly-minted Formula One car with the Red Bull team.
And much of the huge amounts of data feeding into Red Bull’s trackside garage will be relayed in near real-time, before, after and during the race, from AT&T’s Operations Room in the UK, over the AT&T global VPN.
The Red Bull race team transfers up to 400 GB of data across the AT&T network every race weekend helping engineers and critical partners collaborate quickly, effectively – and securely - across the world.
AT & T’s sponsorship of the Red Bull team, which started in 2011, provides the team with a unified communication and collaboration solution featuring instant messaging, IP-based phone services, telepresence, and video conferencing.
{loadposition peter}In fact, data transfer from each racetrack to the team headquarters in the UK averages 400GB every race weekend, with the AT&T network allowing Red Bull Racing to transfer data from their race locations around the world back to the AT&T Operations Room in near real-time – or 300 mili-seconds between the Australian grand prix and headquarters.
The data is fed back to the UK operations centre in virtual real-time using 100 sensors fitted to the Red Bull cars.
The innovation partnership between Red Bull involves a multi-year sponsorship and is based on mission-critical technology integration by AT&T.
Red Bull Racing team head of technical partnerships, Al Peasland, talked in Melbourne yesterday of the importance of fast transfer of date to the raceday team and, critically, the enhanced security around the data provided by AT&T this racing season.
“You’ll notice the cars look different (this year),” Peasland says.
“The new nose and wings have been in the spotlight, but there are less obvious improvements too. To make sure the new design is as aerodynamically efficient as possible, we’ve been taking advantage of our secure AT&T network to help us quickly access data from our wind tunnel in the UK.
“This facility generates a huge amount of information that our engineers have to analyse to hone the design of the new car. They can also look at data from previous seasons in order to help focus development and maximise our performance.”
Ricciardo is driving a brand new designed and built car for the first race of the F1 season in Melbourne on Sunday.
And the speed and security of transfer of near-realtime data, over the AT&T network - in pre-season testing in Spain and on the car as it hits the track on any raceday, including Melbourne on Sunday - will be critical to Red Bull’s efforts to try and gain a competitive edge as it tests the new car’s prowess against teams with their own advanced technology.
That’s where security of data is paramount, particularly in the testing phase of the new cars.
“Testing is all about gathering data, learning about the new elements of the car and then improving its performance. It’s an intense few days, with everyone working together – the trackside team in Barcelona, Spain, our headquarters in Milton Keynes, UK, the wind tunnel in Bedford, UK, and our power unit supplier, in France,” Peasland explains.
“As our innovation partner AT&T enables us all to collaborate quickly, effectively, and in a highly secure manner.
“With a global VPN network from AT&T, Red Bull Racing can rely on virtually real-time data transfer so we can swiftly make crucial, data-driven decisions on how to optimise car performance.
“We have to be able to rapidly develop new components, ship them to the race track and install them onto the car so they can be tested live on the track, with immediate feedback to the engineers.”
Peasland says security of data and the overall team’s operation continues to be boosted every year.
“There’s no standing still when it comes to keeping the team’s information and assets safe, especially as the volume and variety of devices we use continues to grow.
“As always, our focus is on effectively mitigating threats and deflecting unauthorised activities before they happen. We use multiple AT&T security solutions including Secure Event and Threat Analysis (SETA), cloud web security and secure email gateway.”
In fact, as Peasland explains, Red Bull has full control over all the mobile devices accessing its corporate apps and content and if a device is lost or stolen team management can remotely wipe important data from it.
And this year, Red Bull is making more use of mobile devices, with an enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution from AT&T.
“This evolving technology will let the race team innovate in new ways, such as enabling engineers to securely exchange crucial race information directly with the factory using just their smartphones,” Peasland says.
Peasland says that once this year’s pre-season testing was complete, there were an intense couple of weeks to get ready for Sunday’s Melbourne race – analysing all the information, addressing every issue and working on the team strategy for the race.
Keeping the lines of communications operating efficiently and securely over the AT&T network is managed through Red Bull’s AT&T operations room in the UK for race weekends.
The operations room allows the Red Bull team to send a smaller trackside team to races and yet have more team engineers contributing to raceday decisions.
“With data coming in at near real-time – just 300 milliseconds between the Australian Grand Prix and our HQ – they can see exactly what’s happening with the cars and provide strategic race feedback to the trackside team.”