Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Tracking systems for bike racing

Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), an IT consulting firm in CA, has been a regular sponsor of the Amgen Tour of California, one of cycling's elite racing tours. This year, CSC will be placing specially designed tracking devices on several of their riders. These tracking devices will provide both positioning and rider location during each stage of this 8-day race.

This system is different from and maybe a bit cooler than conventional GPS because it allows object field tracking - meaning that it will allow tracking of not only a racers position on the race course but also the relative position of one racer to another. Another difference is that traditional GPS can track relative positioning to about 65 feet whereas this device can track a rider's position to about 10. Another fancy addition that CSC has made is to allow the race fans to access customized maps of the race via our friends at Google Earth.

More details can be found here

How cool...

3 comments:

Goog said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Goog said...

Similar technology is used for the Dakar Ralley. Since part of the desert race stages are to be navigated without aid of GPS, the race organizers utilize a system to limit the GPS functionality to just the compass feature. To prevent racers from taking shortcuts, the route is tagged with hidden GPS waypoints that appear when drivers/riders are within a three mile radius.

Anonymous said...

Good words.