McLaren Applied is to provide telemetry and data viewing software to the E1 electric boat championship.
The data analysis tools – which include ATLAS, System Monitor and McLaren Control Toolbox – will allow the engineers from E1 and boat constructor SeaBird Technologies to view and analyze live and recorded data from the race boats. Data viewing software from McLaren Applied will also be made available to all the teams competing in the championship.
Rodi Basso, co-founder and CEO of E1, commented, “I’m happy to bring McLaren Applied on board. Having worked at McLaren Applied in the past, I know the tools and software they provide will be to the highest standard and will offer teams valuable insight. The data will not only be used to extract the maximum performance and monitor safety but will also be used to show real-time information to fans trackside or watching at home. I think data and certain touchpoints can play a role in making sports more accessible to viewers and actually add to the overall entertainment value.”
The software will be used alongside a configuration tool to enable teams to alter the setup of the vehicle control unit (VCU), also supplied by McLaren Applied, allowing them to influence elements of boat control, such as throttle mapping.
Josh Wesley, head of engineering at SeaBird Technologies, added, “From an engineering perspective, it’s important that we can access and view data in real time coming from the boats. With more testing planned in the coming months, we will rely on using this type of powerful software to record data and review it immediately after each run. We will use the learnings from this analysis to fine-tune the performance of the RaceBird prototype ready to hand it over to the teams.”