Looking for suggestions on how to get strong wifi from race car to pits!
Jammin1911
Icrontian
Hi Icrontic! I'm back again with my yearly hello and noob tech questions. You guys are always super helpful with this sort of stuff whenever I need it so I figured this would be the place to come. I hope everyone is doing well, as always I still see there are a lot of familiar faces posting regularly.
So I've been racing a car in a series called ChumpCar and one of the constant problems we (and just about all other teams) have is reliable communication between the car and pit crew.
We started shooting ideas around and what has us really excited right now is the idea of having a digital means of communication over wifi, maybe using teamspeak or something of the sort.
Cellular is not an option unfortunately because a lot of race tracks in north america are in the middle of nowhere and have spotty coverage.
Another reason the idea of wifi gets us excited is that we would be able to stream video from cameras (and other vehicle data) to the pitts which can prove valuable in an endurance race (some of our races are up to 30 hours long)
I suspect that there might be some legal issues with pumping out a huge WiFi signal, and also some line of sight issues since at most tracks you don't have line of sight visibility of the vehicle. That said, I'm not sure how big those issues are and hopefully that is where you all come in 
I was thinking there must be some neat signal amps I can order out of china or something that may or may not be legal to use in north america that would most likely not bother anyone when you're miles away from the nearest town at a race track. I don't even know where to start, though! We have quite a bit of technology available to us as far as laptops, cell phones, tablets, gopros, etc..
If anyone has any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Icrontic!
John
Comments
im definitely not the best person to ask about this, but i believe there are devices that let you set up wireless local networks without an internet connection, that would perhaps work for you in combination with signal boosters...depending on the size of the track you race on.
PS: love to hear about someone racing on the track. you should check out this Lets Talk Cars
Don't know shit about point-to-point moving WiFi, but damn it's good to see an old name back. Heya Jammin!
I'm no expert on this stuff, but my initial reaction is that WIFI is not a good method at all to use for much of anything in this setting. You could maybe have a camera send video recorded during racing, to a computer in the pits, but only when the vehicle gets close to the pits?
Can't you use good old CB radios? They're cheap, have a decent range, and they're cheap! There's also those FRS/GMRS units which might be a good match. Anything more reliable/secure/functional and I think you're starting to look at actual UHF/VHF units designed for that application (and the price tag to match).
I would think the technology could allow a provider to set up a local-only cellular system, which could allow only certain devices to connect, and then have direct-connect voice and data available to teams as an added service (with added fees), but not sure if that's available or even possible.
At work we have a few dedicated radio bands for our two way radios. This seems like a better option in terms of reliability over WiFi and you may have the option of hooking up video to it through IR waves or via Bluetooth. Some of the newer total stations are equipped with this video technology...
If that doesn't work you could always just attach a GoPro to the dash.
Second the CB response, that's exactly what it's designed for. If you're made of money, Iridium is designed for this too.
Hi Jammin1911,
I used to be (wanting to go back) pit crew for a few drivers at my local short track so I'll try to help as best as possible.
First off, I want to be clear on what you are looking for. Are you looking for something to get real-time telemetry from or just two-way comms for you and the driver?
Thanks for the responses everyone! Glad to see you're still around @primesuspect! Just got an email for my 10 year badge
@aspieRommel primarily we are looking at reliable comms, but were hoping to bring it in to the digital age within a reasonable budget. Currently we, and most/all other teams, use FRS radios which work at most track for about 50-75% of a lap. I'm not sure how CB radios would compare to this - I've never seen anyone using them for some reason but it seems like a reasonable suggestion. As for the video streaming and telemetry this would be an added bonus - it's not something we need, it's something we want. Good reliable comms on the other hand is something we do need.
Our last race at Watkins Glen (20 hours) ended with a crash on the second last lap of the race (19h 57m in approximately.. brutal) and we had no idea what had actually happened because where it happened there was no reception on the radios.... We were unnecessarily extremely worried for 30+ minutes while the safety vehicles towed the car and driver back to us which is never a nice feeling to have.
Above all, we're looking to do something interesting and fun - we'd love to see a live video feed on a tablet we have track side if we can figure out some way to get a reliable data connection.
Jammin1911,
Okay. First, at Watkins Glen, were you running "the Boot" or the Sprint Cup configuration?
Second, in conjunction with the question above, where did your driver crash?
The reason I am asking these questions is because if I have a good idea of where there was no reception, then I can try to find something that may be able to, hopefully, counteract the disruptions.
aspieRommel
Hi @aspieRommel ! The crash was on turn 5, half way through the carousel ... 3rd gear right hander out of the bus stop.
Here is a vid!
Jammin1911,
First, I want to say that I am glad the driver is okay. The Carousel at Watkins Glen has been the site of a few nasty accidents, such as Jason Leffler's crash in the Nationwide Series in 2009 and J.D. McDuffie's fatal crash in the 1990 Winston Cup race. I pray, however, that the driver owns a HANS device by now.
Second, I have a few friends that raced road courses. I'm gonna call around and see what suggestions they have for you.
aspieRommel
@aspieRommel Thank you! And we have ordered 2 HANS devices for the team since the crash. After seeing the footage, we were all not willing to drive another lap without wearing one. It's a newbie lesson learned, for sure.
Depending on what you run for your in-car telemetry, you have some options I think. IMHO, the easiest and cheapest solution would be to have a smart phone running an application like Torque. It has a feature that allows you to push the recorded OBDII data directly to the web as it records. You can then write a script within Google Sheets to pull down the data with a refresh of 3 seconds in the pits, then setup trending graphs that will simply adjust as more data comes in; for example with endurance racing in mind, fuel loads, AFRs, cornering speeds (for tire deg), etc.
For streaming video, you could piggyback on that existing connection with another IP camera or something similar mounted nearby, that would just stream to a laptop or something similar. Low resolution shouldn't be much of a bandwidth hog.
Also, for the in-car communication with the pits, I wonder if you could get your hands on one of those old Boost Mobile Push-to-talk phones and pair it to a BT button on the steering wheel to trigger communication. They worked surprisingly well over long distances.
@doabarrellroll Thanks for your response! Unfortunately in most cases we don't have the option of using cell. A lot of times these big bucket list tracks are in remote locations and cell coverage is spotty.
In the pits and garages its not an issue because usually there is wifi access, but out on the track it's tough.
The other option would be to create your own network at the track without external mobile-network connectivity. High power antennas can reach upwards of 1 mile now, so, you could hit a cell-phone and collect the data over the Wifi network to a host server and then distribute the data in whichever way you please. You'd have to mount it up high so that you'd have decent LoS with the majority of the track.
If you were lucky and had a spot with decent mobile-network reception, you could even pull together a ghetto weather map readout of the area online and have it streamed live to your pit team. That's taking it a bit too seriously I think, lol.
@doabarrellroll haha yeah! Now we are back to what I was originally hoping for, setting up our own high powered antennas and wifi network.
So that said.. Where do I start? Does anyone have any experience with directional antennas or maybe an online supplier where I can start shopping around?