The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix will not only mark the conclusion of the 2023 F1 season but will also witness the testing of artificial intelligence with Computer Vision to better control track limits.
The FIA has revealed its intention to use artificial intelligence to enhance track limit controls in Formula 1. Trials of the new technology will take place in Abu Dhabi this weekend.
As part of an effort to improve the processing speed of track limit checks, the FIA will introduce the so-called “Computer Vision,” a program that utilizes shape analysis.
The idea is for this program to be used to assess the pixels in a video to better determine if cars have violated track limits. The FIA believes that the technology will be much more effective in reducing the number of incidents that require a final check by a human.
The use of artificial intelligence should mean that a smaller number of cases related to track limits need to be processed by the FIA’s Remote Operations Center (ROC), resulting in a much shorter time between the violation report and the decision.
Tim Malyon, the head of the ROC, stated that the use of AI is mainly intended to eliminate cases that do not require human judgment: “We have to do thousands of checks, how do we do it?” he declared in an FIA preview.
“So we put people in place because that’s the most accurate solution. What we’re trying to do now is introduce a higher level than the ROC, namely AI software.”
“Again, it may seem strange, but the methodology with this AI has many parallels with ongoing discussions in medicine right now and the use of Computer Vision, for example, to analyze cancer screening data.”
“The conclusion is that they don’t want to use Computer Vision to diagnose cancer but want to use it to rule out 80% of cases where there clearly isn’t cancer, to give well-trained people more time to examine the 20%. And that’s our goal.”
Malyon explained that the ambition is to reduce the current 800 reports that can be anticipated from a Grand Prix to 50, which will be much easier for FIA personnel to process.
As part of efforts to introduce new systems, the FIA is experimenting with the use of Computer Vision in Abu Dhabi this weekend, along with new systems aimed at providing greater accuracy in car localization.
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Chris Bentley, the head of information systems strategy for single-seaters, stated that the FIA has introduced a system called Catapult, which uses receivers to provide precise localization.
“There are examples in the NFL where every player on the field can be identified, even in a large scrum,” he said. “We can use this technology for live broadcasts as well. It will be the same as the new tool, and we can draw the ‘lines of interest.’ And then artificial intelligence will learn over time.”
Tim Malyon added, “What we’re trying to do for the future is improve all these technologies and introduce new ones.”
“Car positioning continues to be developed to improve accuracy. We’re also planning to double the size of the ROC in terms of the number of people, from four to eight, next year, and we’ll double the connection bandwidth between the track and Geneva to facilitate the remote work of more people.”
Tim Malyon stated that one of the main lessons from the track limit issues that emerged this year in Austria is that the best resource for monitoring violations is not using technology to alert the FIA to violations. Instead, it has been the human eye, which has proven much more effective than the data provided by car detection systems or timing loop analysis.
“We concluded that the loops were not accurate enough and that by far the most accurate solution was to have a data analyst watch the video itself,” he said. “In fact, this is an interesting element of the story because currently, through loop positioning, GPS positioning, and so on, man still wins.”
Tim Bentley added, “We have now turned off the loops for every circuit unless there is a chicane because they hinder what we are trying to achieve. And in the end, the general rule is that if it’s too close to decide, the benefit of the doubt goes to the driver.”
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