Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 revs up testing with augmented reality

All sports teams look for a real competitive edge in development speed and accuracy, but Formula 1 racing is the sport where this is most important. Looking to achieve crucial marginal gains on the track through technology, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team is now using augmented reality (AR) technology from TeamViewer to enhance test and development efficiency, and speed up the build and preparation of test rigs.

Based across technology centres at Brackley and Brixworth in the UK, Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team is the works team of Mercedes-AMG. The team brings together more than 1,000 dedicated and determined people who design, develop, manufacture and race the cars currently driven by multiple F1 Grand Prix winner George Russell and up-and-coming Italian Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

The racing team describes Formula One as a sport like no other, combining elite teamwork, cutting-edge technologies and innovation, high-performance management and exceptional driving skill. In this sport, margins are ultra-fine, and time saved on the track is money, as well as racing prestige.

In the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team test and development lab, the challenge is to assemble complex test rigs quickly. Testing car parts that will have to undergo immense stress under racing conditions is a vital part of car design, both when designing a new car and during the implementation of upgrades throughout the F1 season.

The AR technology is helping the team streamline its development processes. Instead of working from printed guides, as in the past, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team engineers can now use a tablet to see clear, real-time, AR instructions that show exactly how parts should come together. This manual checking from rig to paper proved to be a time-consuming approach, which has been sped up by the introduction of animated overlays showing step-by-step assembly sequences.

TeamViewer says it is helping the design team work faster, reduce errors and get new components ready for race weekends more efficiently. Using TeamViewer’s Frontline technology, the test and development team is able to accelerate rig assembly for the testing programme by moving away from using printed drawings to real-time AR instructions.

With the adoption of Frontline solutions that use spatial technology, the process for testing has now changed. Running on a tablet device, TeamViewer Frontline provides live AR instructions, overlaying the test assembly in real space, with the ability to show animated assembly sequences. The process provides immediate visibility to the test and development team on what goes where and ensures that all relevant parts are present and correctly installed.

The live AR projection of assembly and part information onto the test rig and real-time comparison with computer-aided design (CAD) data gives the engineers peace of mind that everything is present and correct, and there are no inconsistencies before committing to the test, and in a much more efficient way than was previously the case.

“We use TeamViewer to minimise setup time in testing and development and ensure all rigs are 100% accurate before testing begins,” said Steve Riley, Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team’s head of IT operations and development. “Instead of referring to build guides and designs which are elsewhere in the facility, our team can incorporate AR into their workflow and immediately see how the parts form that assembly. Gains in every area of the team’s operations add up to improved performance where it really matters – on the racetrack.”

Daniel Markland, Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team’s principal test and development technician, said test and development is an area of the company dedicated to the safety, reliability and performance testing of the majority of components that go onto an F1 car.

“We can now take a tablet, and through that tablet we can see in real time and space a projection of the 3D CAD model,” he said. “So, we’re looking at where we need to assemble these things, and we can see them in AR. Having a partner that understands how crucial that time frame is to us is key to us being quicker to develop parts, test parts and deliver parts to the track. So having TeamViewer know each step in our development process and really be on board with helping deliver performance across each of those steps is massively valuable for us.”