IT firm to help enhance Virgin Racing’s performance

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - Kerala’s biggest IT company, UST Global has partnered with new Formula One racing team, Virgin Racing to provide IT services to support and enhance their performance on the track.

UST Global’s initial contribution is a real-time race management system, for which it has built an integrated control panel display that assimilates wireless data from the cars on the track, GPS feeds, trackside camera feeds, external weather information, and other data, according to a UST release Tuesday.

The technical analysis is delivered in real time to the trackside support team and allows the team engineers to monitor vital data points, identify calibration of car parts and raise alerts in case of critical faults.

Apart from the RMS, the IT company is on two other projects which include an integration of data for the racing car with the Wirth Research simulator, ensuring a constant, two-way correlation between the two and offer an efficient test-point for technical experimentation.

Discrepancies between actual race conditions and the simulated environment - due to weather, wind conditions, and physical variables like ride height, tire, suspension, gearbox, and engine settings - will be integrated with the simulator settings will facilitate near-perfect replication.

The second one is an automotive parts life management database to track the details of each component of the racing car, including the changes and replacements it undergoes throughout its lifecycle. The application will generate automatic notifications to the race team engineers as a component nears the end of its predicted lifecycle.

Virgin’s marketing director Jim Wright said that the best Formula One partnerships are based upon commercial and technical commitments and in UST Global, Virgin Racing has found an ideal partner.

UST Global president Joe Nalkara said they will continue to help our clients gain competitive advantages through technology and process innovation.

UST Global, headquartered in California, was one of the first IT companies to set shop in the Technopark campus here. It subsequently opened operations at Kochi and has emerged as the biggest employer in the IT sector in the state with now over 3,000 professionals.