Microsoft Supplies the Brain of Formula One Cars

The FIA Formula One World Championship Season 2008 will commence this week. After months of winter development and testing, Melbourne will again host the inaugural race of the season. The Australian Grand Prix weekend will start on Friday, March 14, 2008 and the race on Sunday.

I have been following F1 for more than a decade. I love the passion and spirit where some 1000 people work as a team in the most efficient manner towards one goal, to prepare and run two cars for 18 (depends on the schedule of the season) races a year. I also love the complexity of its technology and the pace of development. The whole team is going all out to extract every bit of performance they could from the package.

The Regulation

There will be further rule change in accordance to the direction of FIA president Max Mosley as usual. We will focus on Technical Regulations Article 8.2.1 concerning Control Electronics.

8.2.1 All components of the engine and gearbox, including clutch, differential and all associated actuators must be controlled by an Electronic Control Unit (ECU) which has been manufactured by an FIA designated supplier to a specification determined by the FIA.

The ECU may only be used with FIA approved software and may only be connected to the control system wiring loom, sensors and actuators in a manner specified by the FIA.

The Project

Microsoft will have its share of Formula One technology this year. In year 2006, Microsoft in partnership with McLaren Electronics Systems (MES) was awarded the tender to supply Engine Control Unit (ECU) for all teams. Microsoft is part of the FIA designated supplier mentioned in the regulation above for FIA Formula One World Championship in 2008, 2009 and 2010. It was announced in the FIA press release on July 5, 2006. After more than a year of development and following testing by all Formula One contenders for 2008 season, it is ready for race in the next few days.

So what does this ECU do? It monitors and controls just about every aspect of the engine operation. It controls the ignition timing, fuel quantity and mixture, etc. base on data gathered from over 100 sensors in the car. The same data will also be continuously transmitted in real time back to the control center of each Formula One team at the pit-side. As far as I am concerned, Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro also broadcast the data back to their factory at Maranello in real time.

According to Microsoft press release dated December 11, 2006, we will see a host of Microsoft software solution employed. Among them are Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, and Microsoft Office 2007. Hope we could get more information on the actual deployment soon.

Final Thoughts

I would say this project is very much in line with Microsoft ideology. Formula One is widely agreed as the pinnacle of motorsport. It attracted the best people in the industry and the pace of technology advancement is second to none.

The sport is about a group of highly able professionals continuously digesting huge set of data making split second decisions to affect the outcome of the race to their favor. The system supplied will utilize various Microsoft technologies to support informed decision at the highest pace and precision.

Microsoft constantly declares that they want to provide people with the right technology and tools to enable them to succeed in their business. The ability to provide tools for this business is definitely a respectable achievement.

I have seen people joke about the idea of these ECUs software crashes in the middle of race, etc. since the announcement was made. I would not say it is impossible to happen that way but looking at the way Formula One teams operate I am positive only very rare glitches would be left unidentified. We could expect an exciting and safe season ahead.