Live from the America’s Cup: The Holy Grail of ‘seeing the wind’
The 37th America’s Cup, being held in Barcelona, Spain, has managed to do what was previously impossible and is “making the invisible visible” via the launch of WindSight IQ from Capgemini.
The system uses LiDAR sensors to measure the wind in real-time and fuses multiple sensor streams using innovative algorithms to enable a wind field to be created over the entire racecourse.
For viewers at home the blue graphical areas on the screen represent the areas where winds can provide an advantage, making it easier to understand the optimal place for the yacht’s to sail (worth noting: those on the yachts are completely on their own, relying on good old fashioned intuition and instincts).
Brent Russell, America’s Cup Media, head of technology, says finding a way to visualise wind has always been the holy grail for the broadcast of sailing events.
“Doppler LiDAR systems have been available in industry for 25 years and while this concept for sailing has been sleeping for at least a decade, it has only been able to germinate now because the defenders had a strong will to deliver our innovation goals for this Cup,” he explains.
Capgemini and America’s Cup Media combined its expertise in technology, engineering, data and design to reveal the wind in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) graphics.
The wind field data is also fed in real-time to a yacht simulator and used to create a live ‘ghost boat’ simulation that can be projected onto the racecourse through AR and VR graphics. It will show the optimal path that the crews should take given the measured variations in wind pressure, sheers, orientation, and speed.
To accurately collect raw wind data, three LiDARs have been positioned along the Barcelona waterfront overlooking the racecourse, scanning the full race area.
Each LiDAR has an average 6.5km scanning range up to a maximum of 12km, and measures wind speeds, every 1.5 meters from 0 to 12km, up to 38m/s (73 knots) with an accuracy of <0.1m/s. WindSight IQ supplements the LiDARs with wind data directly from the racing yachts and buoys’ wind sensors.
All these data streams are fused using innovative algorithms to enable a wind field to be created over the entire racecourse. The wind field is refreshed every second based on the sensor measurements and predictive wind models.
Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup on race day 4
Capgemini’s head of operations Xavier Navarro says the LiDAR are like a port light, doing swipes and sending laser pulses that measure the velocity and direction of the impurities on the air.”
“That allows us to know the direction and velocity of the impurities in the air and when we combine two or three LiDARs we can produce real exact data to reveal the wind speed and direction,” he says.
Could the system get even more granular with its measurements, like to 5×5 meter readings?
“If we wanted to go smaller, we would need more computational power because there are more calculations,” adds Navarro. “We have the servers here on site to reduce the latency and we also have a backup system in the cloud in case something happens.”
Mark Sheffield, director of delivery for the America’s Cup, says the WindSight IQ adds another layer to the broadcast graphics package.
“It really takes that audience on the journey of seeing the wind on the course and everyone I’ve spoken to has says it made a huge difference to them,” he explains. “You can see the gusts and where the low pressure is and that is a huge game changer. Letting the fan see how the teams should negotiate the course and where they should go gives them the whole picture.”
Stephen Nuttall, America’s Cup, head of television, adds that it’s Virtual Eye’s system that ultimately takes the optical data from Bolt6 and Capgemini’s WindSight IQ date and turns it into an on-air graphics product.
“They take an incredibly complex set of data, such as timing speed and biometrics, from our regatta management software, tracking data from Bolt6 and the windfield data from Capgemini and they then use 2D and augmented reality graphics to tell the complex stories of the race beautifully onscreen,” he adds.