A new track limits system managed by Artificial Intelligence appears in Italy

Is the problem of track limits not respected by professional drivers for several years about to be resolved? This is what an Italian company specializing in sports technologies, Mermec Engineering, hopes to achieve.

The multinational presented a new system based on artificial intelligence as part of the circuit of Vallelunga (Italy) in mid-March. “The idea was born from the interaction with Race Direction, who then find themselves, during races, having to manage numerous track limit signals, which are often not resolved in a clear manner, explains the company's CEO, Niccolo Cherroni.

This results in disputes and management problems. So we thought that our automatic video analysis systems, that is, artificial intelligence applied to computer vision, could be useful. The system is therefore capable of automatically recognizing cars on the track, by monitoring their crossing of a dividing line in turns.

Once the infraction has been identified, race management receives a real-time extract of the video, associated with a history of information, which allows it to proceed with the possible application of penalties. A simple and intuitive system which can connect symbiotically with the cameras already present on the circuit and which offers precision of the order of centimeters, depending mainly on the resolution of the cameras installed. Versatility is also one of the strong points, with the “limit lines” easily adapting to any type of curve.

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The system is said to have impressed the President of the ACI, the Italian equivalent of the FFSA, Angelo Sticchi Damiani. “My first impressions are excellent. This is an innovative and reliable technology. I believe that it is fundamental to exploit certain opportunities offered by artificial intelligence, also to better meet the challenges of the future. »

If it becomes more widely available, this solution could be used by other circuits and other championship promoters. There F1 has also been working on an AI process for several months, notably following the 2023 Austrian Grand Prix where around twenty penalties were applied several hours after the finish of the event.