Formula E team caught using RFID scanner that got live tire data from other cars
theverge.com
theverge.com
You're talking about a 80-100km race where winner is ahead by typically only a few seconds. If you can squeeze a 0.1% gain out of some key info, you'll do far better for it.
Your driver is about to try to pass the driver ahead if him. How hard should he try? Pushing hard uses up your tires and energy. If you know the guy ahead has tires that are getting a bit worn, you know he won't fight very hard. That's a big advantage.
It's not totally clear, but it seems like this would only gather data when the opponent car entered the pit lane. In that case, the knowledge gained would just be knowledge about competitors' tires during practice, since during the race the tires aren't changed. That could be extrapolated to what the competitors' tire setup for the race, and performance of tires during the race are.
They do. Pirelli F1 tires are color coded so anyone can tell at a glance what compound it is. Not sure why FE is different.
From https://www.tyrepress.com/2014/01/formula-e-tyres-to-feature...
> “These RFID chips will be embedded in the tyres’ sidewalls to ensure their traceability, from their production right through to their return to the factory after use at the racetrack,” explains Serge Grisin, manager of Michelin Motorsport’s four-wheel programmes. “Traditionally, this information is collected using an optical bar code reader. These new electronic tags open up all sorts of possibilities in addition to simply identifying individual tyres. They will be able to collect data relating to running conditions including temperature and pressure sensors. It will be possible to record and access information covering the tyre’s entire lifecycle.”
Identifying - sure. But how do they get temperature and pressure information? Is there a microcontroller embedded that writes stuff to the tag?
Perhaps the car is using Wi-Fi for TPMS.
There's a small battery-powered device mounted inside the tire, attached to the valve stem.
In regular passenger vehicles, it's usually woken up regularly by a signal from the car. It takes sensor readings, and transmits them back to the car (using that region's unlicensed UHF bands).
I imagine Formula teams may have need for greater frequency of sensor data, so there could be some variations here, but that's broadly how it works. In a passenger car, the battery outlives the tire.
> In regular passenger vehicles
So this system gets abused in sports. I wonder if there are applications in the real world (like tracking of movement of (individual) cars).
It's already done. When you drive into a parking lot, or go through a restaurant drive-through, your tires may already be scanned and your information sold.
It doesn't take much to corollate a person using the same credit card more than once at a store with the transmitted IDs of their tires in the parking lot, and then follow that person, via their tires, from place to place as they shop, do errands, visit an abortion clinic, etc.
Electronic sensors of various sorts have become low enough power to enable embedding a very small battery with sensors and RFID transmitter. These can log readings every second or few for a few _years_.
But in reality they probably intend to use a UHF WISP e.g. embedded micro-controller.
If you know the state of everyone else’s you could game this to be in a better position.
I'm with you. To me, the second point is irrelevant. Something is either explicitly forbidden by the rules, or allowed by them. If doing this provides an unfair advantage then maybe there needs to be a new rule. To be honest, I think not making it a rule and letting everyone do it (as long as they can do it without breaking the rule on the first point) would make the game more interesting.
I expect a full clarification and likely more explicit ban or such devices will be forthcoming.
"it is forbidden in general for competitors to install or place any equipment in the pit lane"
Most TPMS can be read with an $29 SDR @ 433mhz.
Not RFID, there's a little coin cell somewhere in the wheel.
You could very easily pre-hash the values. It’s not cryptographically secure, but secure enough to prevent your opponent from figuring it out during the race.