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Indy 500 Keeps Score With RFID
Race officials use an active-tag system to drive real-time reports on racers’ performance.
By Patrick Karle
May 31, 2004—To time and score Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, the event’s sanctioning body used an RFID-based system called TranX Pro. Made by AMB i.t. of Heemstede, Netherlands, the transponder-based, automatic identification and timing system is used by professional sports organizations worldwide to time and score everything from IndyCar racers to the Olympic Games.
“IRL racing is fast and close, and we have only one chance to get it and get it right,” says Jon Koskey, director of timing and scoring for the Indy Racing League (IRL), which officiates the event. IRL will use the system for 15 other major league U.S. open-wheel races on this year’s IndyCar Series.
Koskey says AMB’s combination of transponders affixed to the cars and antennas embedded in the asphalt help turn the 2.5-mile racetrack into a stopwatch, accurate and reliable enough to differentiate and verify the times of two or more cars passing the same point within 10,000ths of a second of each other. Such accuracy is welcome when at 200 mph., the anticipated average lap speed during this year’s Indianapolis 500, 33 IndyCars will lap the track once every 40 seconds.
The TranX Pro system works like this: Each of the 33 cars starting the Indianapolis 500 carries a battery-powered transponder that constantly emits a seven-digit identification code on a low-frequency signal.
The transponders, approximately 2 inches square and 1 inch thick, are installed in the same position on the side of each car, 33 inches from the tip of the car’s nose, and 12 inches above the track. IRL race teams install the transponders, and IRL tech inspection makes sure that each car has the transponder correctly installed, and covered with a protective cowling. They are completely tamper proof and immune to vibration.
As each car completes a lap, it passes over the detection loop at the start/finish line, which picks up the transponder’s unique ID code. AMB detection loops consist of two copper wires 24 inches apart. They are installed in the track surface at the start-finish line—Indy’s famous Yard of Bricks.
Kevin Oonk, president of AMB i.t. US, which is based in Smyrna, Ga., says the AMB TranX Pro system’s read range between transponder and loop is about 2 feet. He said the equipment uses a proprietary method to determine when the transponder is exactly in the middle of the two loop wires. He says the loop can detect up to eight transponder signals at exactly the same time, so the system can read up to eight vehicles passing at exactly the same time.
The detection loop is connected to an AMB TranX Pro trackside decoder (TSU) that reads the ID code and creates a record of the car’s passing. That information is sent through a fiber optic cable in TCP/IP Ethernet mode to the control tower, where two AMB servers running customized AMB Track Timing TimeGear MultiLoop software collect the records and update the race order.
A customized AMB software module then writes each record to a database file. IRL-created software retrieves the information and distributes it via the IRL’s Microsoft SQL Server 2003 database application called Indy Racing Information Systems (IRIS). Running on an HP Proliant DL 380 server, IRIS presents real-time lap-by-lap timing and scoring results to IRL race teams, officials and the media, as well as fans via scoreboards around the 750-acre motor sports complex.
The Speedway’s Online Team’s network also continuously taps IRIS to post ongoing race results live to the Internet. Fans worldwide can get real-time updates of the lap-by-lap scores throughout the 500-mile race via www.Indy500.com. The Web site received more than 300 million hits during May 2003, according to Adrian Payne, manager of Internet development for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Although the AMB TranX Pro system is the IRL’s core timing system, the IRL, like the NFL, NBA and other professional sports leagues, also depends on highly experienced human observers to officiate the 500. In fact, AMB strongly recommends all its customers use visual verification of finishes of competitors closer than 6/10,000ths, Oonk says.
In addition to a team of observers, IRL Timing and Scoring uses TAG Heuer electronic photocells and other auxiliary timing systems for additional checkpoints. A new high-speed digital finish-line and timing camera, provided through a technology partnership with TAG Heuer, was added this year to document every passing of every car throughout the race.
Focused on the start-finish line, the camera takes a frame every 1/10,000th of a second—fast enough to freeze tire rotation as cars pass at 200 mph. The resulting image is so crystal-clear that you can even read the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s wing-and-wheel logo on the Firestone tires.
“This isn’t a photo-finish camera that takes one photo of the finish,” Koskey says. “This camera documents the entire 500-mile race and provides us with excellent digital video evidence of every passing of every car.”
Koskey says technology is one of the reasons the IRL is the leader in motor sports entertainment, but there’s a more pragmatic reason the IRL uses AMB’s TranX Pro System. Race officials use the information generated by the timing system to tell the race promoter how to divide the purse. Though the exact amount will not be disclosed until Monday evening’s 500 award banquet, first-place finisher Buddy Rice of Phoenix will win more than $1 million. Last year’s winner Indy 500 winner, Gil de Ferran, took home $1,353,265 of the record $10,151,830 purse.
RFID Journal Home
May 31, 2004—To time and score Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, the event’s sanctioning body used an RFID-based system called TranX Pro. Made by AMB i.t. of Heemstede, Netherlands, the transponder-based, automatic identification and timing system is used by professional sports organizations worldwide to time and score everything from IndyCar racers to the Olympic Games.
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“IRL racing is fast and close, and we have only one chance to get it and get it right,” says Jon Koskey, director of timing and scoring for the Indy Racing League (IRL), which officiates the event. IRL will use the system for 15 other major league U.S. open-wheel races on this year’s IndyCar Series.
Koskey says AMB’s combination of transponders affixed to the cars and antennas embedded in the asphalt help turn the 2.5-mile racetrack into a stopwatch, accurate and reliable enough to differentiate and verify the times of two or more cars passing the same point within 10,000ths of a second of each other. Such accuracy is welcome when at 200 mph., the anticipated average lap speed during this year’s Indianapolis 500, 33 IndyCars will lap the track once every 40 seconds.
The TranX Pro system works like this: Each of the 33 cars starting the Indianapolis 500 carries a battery-powered transponder that constantly emits a seven-digit identification code on a low-frequency signal.
The transponders, approximately 2 inches square and 1 inch thick, are installed in the same position on the side of each car, 33 inches from the tip of the car’s nose, and 12 inches above the track. IRL race teams install the transponders, and IRL tech inspection makes sure that each car has the transponder correctly installed, and covered with a protective cowling. They are completely tamper proof and immune to vibration.
As each car completes a lap, it passes over the detection loop at the start/finish line, which picks up the transponder’s unique ID code. AMB detection loops consist of two copper wires 24 inches apart. They are installed in the track surface at the start-finish line—Indy’s famous Yard of Bricks.
Kevin Oonk, president of AMB i.t. US, which is based in Smyrna, Ga., says the AMB TranX Pro system’s read range between transponder and loop is about 2 feet. He said the equipment uses a proprietary method to determine when the transponder is exactly in the middle of the two loop wires. He says the loop can detect up to eight transponder signals at exactly the same time, so the system can read up to eight vehicles passing at exactly the same time.
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| TranX Pro RFID tag |
The detection loop is connected to an AMB TranX Pro trackside decoder (TSU) that reads the ID code and creates a record of the car’s passing. That information is sent through a fiber optic cable in TCP/IP Ethernet mode to the control tower, where two AMB servers running customized AMB Track Timing TimeGear MultiLoop software collect the records and update the race order.
A customized AMB software module then writes each record to a database file. IRL-created software retrieves the information and distributes it via the IRL’s Microsoft SQL Server 2003 database application called Indy Racing Information Systems (IRIS). Running on an HP Proliant DL 380 server, IRIS presents real-time lap-by-lap timing and scoring results to IRL race teams, officials and the media, as well as fans via scoreboards around the 750-acre motor sports complex.
The Speedway’s Online Team’s network also continuously taps IRIS to post ongoing race results live to the Internet. Fans worldwide can get real-time updates of the lap-by-lap scores throughout the 500-mile race via www.Indy500.com. The Web site received more than 300 million hits during May 2003, according to Adrian Payne, manager of Internet development for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Although the AMB TranX Pro system is the IRL’s core timing system, the IRL, like the NFL, NBA and other professional sports leagues, also depends on highly experienced human observers to officiate the 500. In fact, AMB strongly recommends all its customers use visual verification of finishes of competitors closer than 6/10,000ths, Oonk says.
In addition to a team of observers, IRL Timing and Scoring uses TAG Heuer electronic photocells and other auxiliary timing systems for additional checkpoints. A new high-speed digital finish-line and timing camera, provided through a technology partnership with TAG Heuer, was added this year to document every passing of every car throughout the race.
Focused on the start-finish line, the camera takes a frame every 1/10,000th of a second—fast enough to freeze tire rotation as cars pass at 200 mph. The resulting image is so crystal-clear that you can even read the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s wing-and-wheel logo on the Firestone tires.
“This isn’t a photo-finish camera that takes one photo of the finish,” Koskey says. “This camera documents the entire 500-mile race and provides us with excellent digital video evidence of every passing of every car.”
Koskey says technology is one of the reasons the IRL is the leader in motor sports entertainment, but there’s a more pragmatic reason the IRL uses AMB’s TranX Pro System. Race officials use the information generated by the timing system to tell the race promoter how to divide the purse. Though the exact amount will not be disclosed until Monday evening’s 500 award banquet, first-place finisher Buddy Rice of Phoenix will win more than $1 million. Last year’s winner Indy 500 winner, Gil de Ferran, took home $1,353,265 of the record $10,151,830 purse.
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READERS' COMMENTS
RFID
Will the rfid be used at the Nascar Brickyard 400 this yr? I work for walmart and I can't wait to get involved with the rfid tracking system. Its an inovative and exciting tool.
Posted By: M. Kresnik 6/03/2004 at 9:12:46 PM