In the fiercely competitive world of international motorsport,
where every millisecond counts, Kinetica has been chosen by Mahindra Racing, currently competing in the electric FIA Formula E
Championship, to provide immediate insights from racing car sensor data,
essential for success in Formula E racing. Mahindra Racing selected Kinetica as
its real-time database for advanced analytics for its unrivaled speed and
processing of location-enriched time-series
data from sensors encompassing engine, aerodynamics,
and tire performance. The faster they can process this data, run complex
models, and identify critical issues, the quicker Mahindra Racing's team can fine-tune their cars' setups to win races.
Dr. Ruggero Franich, Head of Software Engineering, Mahindra
Racing, said, "Kinetica is a well engineered software product that functions as
advertised. The craftsmanship of its makers is evident in its function as well
as in the confident and effective technical support. We selected Kinetica for
speed as data throughput matters to us because the time between car runs can be
short and we need to understand what happened during a run before the next one
starts. Kinetica's speed is impressive and it applies even when temporally
aligning large time-series samples with different time-bases such as ECU data
from a variety of sensors. As databases go, Kinetica might as well have been
made for Motorsport."
Kinetica's unique ASOF join capability, allowing the correlation
of different car sensor readings with offset timestamps across a staggering 8,000 tables
of individual sensor reading time-series data feeds, set it apart from
competitors and secured the deal. "The Mahindra Formula E Racing team extends
its appreciation to all those at Kinetica instrumental in designing and
building this powerful feature - it truly rocks," praised Cameron Maultby,
Chief Commercial Officer, Mahindra Racing.
"Kinetica's ASOF joins offer a seamless solution for merging data
from multiple tables, even when timestamps don't align perfectly," said Nima
Negahban, Cofounder and CEO, Kinetica. "By enabling Mahindra Racing's team to
define intervals for data combination based on close values, we empowered them
to gain insights and clarity, even in the absence of precise timestamp matches.
Inexact joins also extend this capability to spatial relationships, allowing
tables to be linked when objects are within a specified distance of each other.
Kinetica paves the way for a more comprehensive understanding of data
relationships, so imperative when speed determines winners."
Mahindra Racing is not only committed to expanding the limits of
technology and innovation on the race track, but also to addressing the impact
of climate change. It was the first Formula E team to achieve FIA
Environmental Accreditation and in October 2020, it was awarded Three-Star
accreditation, which is the top level possible and demonstrates excellence and
best practice in the area. The team is committed to the FIA Environmental
Accreditation program by minimizing its environmental impact and working towards
achieving carbon neutrality. Likewise, Kinetica stands out as a trailblazer in
this pursuit, particularly in the realm of compute efficiency and energy
optimization. By optimizing the processing of data through its use of
vectorization, Kinetica radically reduces the number of processors needed to
perform intricate analytical tasks. This not only translates to impressive
speed and performance gains but also leads to substantial energy cost savings exceeding tenfold for certain customers. With fewer processors in operation, the energy required
for power and cooling is significantly reduced, resulting in a notable
reduction in the carbon footprint.
Mahindra Racing and Kinetica are already exploring new innovations
to incorporate geospatial data sets for in-race track positioning, ensuring
that every inch of the circuit is mastered with precision. The next frontier
includes assessing edge computing needs to move complex models closer to the
data, eliminating the lag
associated with data transfer. Kinetica is the only database that can take
advantage of edge computing with a GPU. This makes the edge device smaller,
lighter, and more powerful, critical for many use cases, like racing. Adding vector search capabilities to quickly retrieve historical
data patterns from in-car sensors and gain critical insights in real-time to
predict similar data patterns and alter race strategy is also under
evaluation.
"The future of motorsport is about to get even faster and smarter
with Mahindra Formula E Racing Team working with Kinetica to create new avenues
for enhancing performance in Electric
Racing," continued Maultby. "The future of Formula E is not just electric; it's
data-driven, precise and immediate."