For LG and F1™ Communication is Key

2 November 2009 - By Bob McKenzie

For LG and F1 communication is key. LG mobile phones and Netbook computers have come to play an integral part in our everyday lives as the need to stay in touch becomes ever more important in the worlds of work and play. In Formula One data and strategy communication is equally as important - from pit garage-to-car transfer of telemetry, to data processing at-track and F1 team HQ. In this article LG investigates the ways this information is transmitted and processed, and finds out how LG and F1 share many similarities in their respective communication solutions.

Once upon a time, going motor-racing meant goggles, a decent car and fast driver and a garage to store the nuts, bolts and fuel. Walk through a Formula One™ garage now and it seems as if you have arrived at Mission Control in Houston for the moon landing.

A key difference, of course, is that to send their land-based four-wheel rockets around 17 circuits a season, the ten Formula One™ teams have more computer power at their fingertips than NASA had 40 years ago.

Oh, add an 18 strong pit crew, the senior team officials with their data screens on the pitwall beside the track, the 12 men sitting in front of computer screens in the back of the garage, another eight technicians in the trucks parked behind them, and perhaps six more sitting thousands of miles away in the factories.

Equally long ago computers were massive main frame systems that had significantly less functionality then they do today. Jump forward to the present and computers and data processing capability is found in almost everything that a global electronics leader, like LG, including tiny Netbook computers, cell phones, LCD TVs and even Washing Machines.

Welcome to the world of Formula One™, welcome to the world of LG and F1™, welcome to a world where two great names in technological leadership have found a remarkable synergy in what I learned is a well suited partnership.

As a sports reporter who had covered most sports including soccer, rugby, athletics and several Olympic Games I have spent a lot of time with the competitors and I have learned a lot about the technology of sports. Today, I was doing quite different from a normal weekend at a sporting event. Today I was going to spend time with one of the newest sponsors in F1™.

It is a F1™ race weekend in Silverstone, and I have the chance to take Andrew Barrett and Frank Lee of LG Electronics, into the world of Formula 1™. As we walked into the paddock area where teams build their village every two weeks around the world and your eye is drawn to the forest of aerials and the satellite dishes on top of the massive trucks parked near the pitlane garages.

The reason is that the cars are now equipped with their own brains in the shape of telemetry. Tele in telemetry is from the Greek word meaning remote but even they would be astonished at real time transmissions from a car racing in Asia to a factory in rural England.

The driver does the tactical thinking, the intuitive racing but now, with 200 sensors placed around the car, data flows non-stop into supercomputers to help F1™ teams extract every tiny piece of information which might help build the picture of success.

To go faster these days in F1™, unlike any other motor-racing series, is to use the full extent of technology and data processing. Hardly a piece of the car is not scrutinized constantly...tyre pressures, brake temperatures, oil pressure, the efficiency of the exhausts, the consistency of the fuel and much more.

At least 160,000 measurements flood back to the computers per second, to build a picture for the engineers in numeric and graphic form is a real-time image of the health of the car. To the engineers, designers, mechanics, the car is not an inanimate collection of carbon fibre, metal, wiring, plastic. It is an extension of themselves, which they love and urge to do better.

One team recently estimated that if every piece of data recorded during a full race distance were printed out, it would cover a pile of double-sided A4 paper 2.5km high!

Nothing is hidden from the team, as they have an immense amount of data available to aid in their very sophisticated decision making.

We arrive at the BWM garage and we head inside to learn more about F1™ technology and data processing environments and look for the similarities with LG Products. I was immediately struck at home at home the technological experts from LG were in talking about the technology world of F1™.

Inside BWM, like every other team, there are many engineers sitting at a dozen computer screens in the back of the garage to analyse the data and then offer informed advice to the engineers working directly on the car. Behind them, in the trucks, is another group of technicians analyzing different data and back in the factories of the teams who are based in Britain, Germany and Italy, working in real time, yet another small unit of race technicians, usually thousands of miles from the action, can provide cold, unemotional advice.

Witnessing the conversations between the BWM engineers and the LG specialists I quickly learn from the LG team that the advance data processing of F1™ is not too unlike the work that is done at LG product development labs where engineers pour over immense amounts of data to develop leading edge product innovation.

BMW's communications man says: "As the cars are driving around we get a constant telemetry and when they come in to the garage we get downloaded data but at a much higher rate and we can then do a final analysis on engine and gearbox operation. The guys here then send a summary to the pitwall, just the important points, lap by lap - car balance, aerodynamics, engine performance etc.

"For each chassis, we have an engine guy, data engineer, systems engineer and also people who are common between the cars: an aerodynamicist, a gearbox engineer, and some electronic personnel watching sensors and seeing that everything is working as it should. Data processing at track requires about 12 people for us, plus people on the pitwall and another three in the truck. We feed back to the factory, too. They will give us feedback off-line as a back up when needed.

"The data comes from the car on a standard telemetry system over the radio from cars to pits. The intercom system is a 2-way open verbal communication between everyone in the garage and on the pitwall, in the truck and in the factory."

The computers are festooned with buttons and he explains: "We split them up into groups because we have three or four discussions going on at once and you cannot process all that information at one time for two cars. You press the fuel button and only people who are interested in that area of the car are involved.

With all this immense amount of data it requires computers that can quickly process the data and produce easily analysed results. Frank Lee tells me that this is quite similar to the evolving needs for home computers to be able to process large amounts of data in a quick period of time. Today’s consumers are using computers for more advanced applications such as video processing, large photo files, and instant communications. Sounds a lot like the LG computers need to be as capable as those being used here in an F1 team garage.

Having all this data is one thing, bit being able to digest the results and communicate them to others in the middle of a loud racing environment is another. BMW’s spokesperson goes on to say "We also have an SMS text-like system. If you don't necessarily want to interrupt someone by seeking, you can send a message saying, for example, on the next lap change the settings. It is like a back-up. The guys with the PCs here can therefore talk to the guys in the garage with the laptops in a non-verbal way. Rather than everyone having to ask all the time, they can glance at the screen. Very handy in this noisy environment."

This SMS communication system of the F1™ team sounded a lot like the SMS system that exists on LG cell phones. Both being designed to allow the user to communicate in a non-verbal fashion where verbal communication may not be a preferred method for the user.

As Jonathan Neale, Managing Director of McLaren Racing, puts it, "An F1™ car is a very complicated machine needing constant monitoring to obtain the optimum performance. You do not get very long to make key decisions about the car to inform the driver.

"In order to win a race you have to shift the odds in your favour and to do that you have to give everybody the information they need to do the job. It is not enough to be reactive. We work very closely with our partners Vodafone and Lenovo to ensure that our analytical computers are constantly refining their predictions of what is going to happen in the race over the next 10 to 15 laps. All the teams, whether they use SMS or a communications network run this process.

"They are all radio loops although one is a broadband channel which goes all the way back to Woking at the McLaren Technology Centre, which is a bit like the Apollo 13 Mission Control where we can plug in more technicians and super computers to support a race weekend. The objective is to take decisions at the point of most knowledge. There are some decisions that the team principal will take alone but not many. A sub-set of this data-rich environment will be posted to technicians where they can make informed decisions."

Every driver wants power, speed, with some style. Every designer wants the same but power to weight ratio is crucial. And that brings us even closer to the link between LG and F1™, for in the creation of such products as mobile phones, laptops and netbook computers, LG technicians must constantly manage the conundrum of providing power, speed and efficiency but in a manageable and stylish package.

After completing our tour of the F1 garages, I had a more time to sit down with the LG team in BWM’s motorhome in the Paddock.

Andrew Barrett, Vice President for Global Sponsorships at LG Electronics is understandably excited by the linkage between the LG and Formula One™.

"We have so much in common with a business like F1™. The teams listen to what the driver needs and try to match his demands to win. We listen carefully to what the customer is telling us and try to produce mobile phones or a netbook to match their aspirations."

‘When we first walked into the Paddock we were noticed the collection of antennas emanating from every F1 team’s facilities. These antennae allow for constant connection from cars to data processing. For LG’s customers to be productive they also don't want to be tethered by a wire connected to the internet. In LG’s Netbook, the antenna system is powerful enough to allow the user to connect anywhere, anytime and transmit data at very high speeds; high speeds like those of F1™.”

"As in F1™, the key for LG is innovation and constantly finding ways to improve. Take a mobile phone. You have battery life, weight and size. Would you like a phone that lasted for 48 hours without recharging? Yes, but the battery to go with it is big. No, you want it small. It's as much about weight, size and power with us as it is in F1™ and just like F1™, it’s all about compromise”.

Frank Lee, one of LG’s Global Brand Ambassadors, agrees."In recent times, the demand from many consumers has moved from having the largest screen on a laptop to owning a specialized product like the netbook which is compact and portable. But it must also be practical so that work can be done on the move.

"If the LG Netbook were a car, the engine would be the CPU; the battery would be the fuel, and the processor the communications system. "In LG’s case, the driver is the consumer.

What does he or she need to do the job better? To enjoy the experience being freed from accessories he or she does not need but using what is necessary to be quickly up to speed?

"Just like a F1™ racing car does not need a CD player, glove box and coffee holder, all of which you would expect in a road car, so you don't need all the power that is on the desktop when it comes to a Netbook. It can be miniaturised and the core features you need are satisfied within a very small and light machine. LG Netbooks provide the user the optimal balance of power and weight with the focus on what matters most to the user F1™ cars have some areas that can’t be reduced in size, like the cockpit for the driver. So the F1™ engineers have to focus on minimizing other elements of the car. LG does the same thing with its products. We all want to be able to enter data into our computers quickly so we want an easy to use keyboard. So with that in mind LG created a keyboard which is 98% the size of a regular keyboard. Meanwhile LG focused on making the rest of the LG Netbooks’ ‘chassis’ smaller and thinner."

And like an F1™ Car, LG Netbook’s have a lot of smart technology within them. Smartlink, an LG development, lets the user stick in a USB cable and connect to another computer and overtake their optical drive so you don't need to physically carry that as luggage. Someone else does it and you can use theirs. What would help F1™ is the development of a reliable text to speech system but fortunately LG are working on just such a process for the future in their technology, and maybe that might someday find its way into F1™.

As many of us that have been involved with F1™ for many years know, F1™ is about technology, and it is also about style and design. Many teams spend an enormous amount of time making sure that there cars are a great stylish expression that put the best image forward for the brands that are represented on the car. When I first saw the LG Netbook with its slim profile, beautiful colouring and eye pleasing lines I knew here to there were great similarities with LG products and F1™ cars.

Design also goes hand in glove with practicality and just as the keyboard on a LG Netbook must be ergonomic, so the steering wheel of an F1™ car must also be designed to be both functional and comfortable for the driver. A lot of effort goes into the design of a driver’s steering wheel to accommodate up to 14 different switches that the driver must operate while at the same time driving the car.

From this the driver can change his own aerodynamic wings, change the fuel mixture, use the radio, change gear, virtually anything to obtain maximum performance. So much effort goes into the design and technology of these steering wheels that a single steering wheel can cost a minimum of $100,000 to produce. Here I did find one major difference between LG and F1™; an LG Netbook is much more affordable.

LG and F1™? In just a short time we all discovered together that both are using cutting edge technology to provide superior performance and reliability at high speeds, and both are focused on winning with style.

As a fun aside, learning about all this style and technology made me think back many years ago when I did a unique lap of this very same Silverstone F1 circuit.

Boldly, I had said in mid-season several years ago that the one team’s car was too bad to win a race. I was so confident I said in my newspaper and on radio that I would run naked around the Silverstone circuit if it did win. It did!

Like a well designed F1™ car, and as I have learned today, a well designed LG Netbook, I also had the help of some stylish designers. With just the right amount of artistic body painting and a strategically placed Scottish sporran, I managed to spare any blushes amongst the 100,000 people in the crowd that watched me make my lap around Silverstone just before the British Grand Prix.

In contract to F1™ Cars and LG Netbooks, I did not have any telemetry sensors or data processing capabilities for my lap of the track. Telemetry in my case would only have told us what we could see. Like the F1™ cars and the LG Netbooks my body also would benefit from more power and less weight.

But what I lacked in both I made up for it what my lap did accomplish. What started as a lost bet with a F1™ Team Principal, encouraged by Bernie Ecclestone whose authority rules in F1™, ended up producing an £11,000 donation to charity.

That in itself showed the F1™ community spirit that exists beyond the technology and style. And in many ways show’s a final linkage between F1™ and LG; they both can make Life Good for others.