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Note: Big data, meet fast data. Lotus Formula One team uses more than 200 sensors on the car to measure tires, brakes and more for real-time alarms and post-race analysis.
5 Big Wishes For Big Data Deployments(click image for larger view and for slideshow)
Life on a Formula One racing team is part Moneyball, part video game.
"It is like racing games, You've got all the tracks with the cars and where they are" on a display, said Graeme Hackland, CIO for the Lotus F1 racing team.
Putting race data at the fingertips of the race engineer has been "the huge change" in the IT aspect since Hackland started at Lotus F116 years ago, when it was known as the Benetton team. "Instead of a couple of smart guys on the pit wall, doing intuitive decision-making, now we have over 200 sensors on the car," said Hackland.
Those sensors can create real-time alarms on brakes, tires, fuel and other factors that affect car performance during a race. Plus, there's now a post-race analysis, which looks at the car's performance in light of weather conditions, track temperatures, the specific batches of tires used in the races, and so on.
[ Is big data poised for a backlash? Read Big Data: 6 Ways To Find What Matters. ]
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