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The Nordschleife, the longest racetrack in the world at the Nürburgring, will be fully digitized by 2025. 21 kilometers, more than 150 curves, everyone who is a little
The Nordschleife, the longest racetrack in the world at the Nürburgring, will be fully digitized by 2025.
21 kilometers, more than 150 curves, everyone who is a little bit enthusiastic about cars knows the Nordschleife. The route where the late Sabine Schmitz drove past Porsches in a van in a legendary episode of Top Gear is a challenge for any driver. “The Green Hell” is used for official races, but you can also test the limits of your own car on a daily basis.
Whoever exceeds the limit stands in the guardrail, because the course offers little leeway along the asphalt due to its historical character. The result is daily crashes, life-threatening or not. Unlike the Nürburgring, the almost 5.1-kilometer official circuit on the Nordschleife, you can’t monitor every bend and curve.
The Nordschleife has been dangerous since the 1920s, but modern technology should be able to guarantee better safety today. After a discussion with Fujitsu in 2021, a two-year test case and a budget reservation of eleven million euros, the Nordschleife will be digitally piloted into the 21st century.
In order to fully understand the situation of the Nordschleife, one must first understand that the track is located in the middle of the Eifel and goes around several villages. With its 21 kilometers, the circuit is unique in the world. Plus, the fact that you can race across it in your own car almost every day of the week makes the Nordschleife iconic but dangerous at the same time.
At official races, we work with hundreds of roadside marshals who communicate with each other via walkie-talkie.
Christian Stephani, Managing Director of the Nürburgring Group
Christian Stephani, Managing Director of the Nürburgring Group, explains how they try to make everything as safe as possible today. “During official races, we work with hundreds of roadside marshals who communicate with each other via walkie-talkie. If there is a problem, they also wave colored flags to warn other pilots. Every racing car has a GPS tracker on board so we can immediately see what’s going on where.”
The Nordschleife hosts around thirty official races a year, but the track is open to the public on all other days of the week (except in winter). If you pay 29 euros, you can enjoy a lap on the Nordschleife. “These cars don’t have a GPS tracker. Sometimes up to 500 cars are on the track at the same time.”
Germany loves royal cars, but with all the digital possibilities of today, the Nordschleife has had to evolve to make everyday operations safer. “There are hardly any digital signs on the route to warn the drivers,” says Stephani. If a car goes off the track brutally, you have to hope that other drivers will brake in time and that the rest behind will see it too.
They wanted to get rid of this dependency, because every fatal accident on the Nordschleife pushes the organization more and more into a corner. Avoiding something like this one hundred percent is never possible, but there is still a lot that can be done better than the situation today.
Entry at Fujitsu, led by Jörn Nitschmann, Head of Digital Transformation Unit DACH. He is visibly beaming that the company was able to win this project. In short: the Japanese want to install cameras and, in the long term, LED signal boards around the 21-kilometer course in order to report problems fully automatically using artificial intelligence, so that other drivers in the area slow down.
Due to the high speed of the cars on the 2.8-kilometer straight, sometimes over 300 km/h, we knew that if the system worked here, it would work everywhere.
Jörn Nitschmann, Head of Digital Transformation Unit DACH at Fujitsu
The technology is not new. Cameras have been used worldwide for decades to count vehicles or recognize license plates. Traditional shorter circuits often do not require such infrastructure of cameras as they are compact enough to be monitored from anywhere. The Nordschleife is a big loop with a big forest and a few villages in the middle, you can’t do that there.
Fujitsu started a two-year pilot project on the 2.8-kilometer “Döttinger Höhe”, a straight stretch from the start/finish of the Nordschleife for day-trippers. “We installed eight cameras there to train the system. Due to the high speed of the cars on this route, sometimes over 300 km/h, we knew that if the system worked here, it would work everywhere.”
After a successful pilot project and the reservation of eleven million euros, the complete digitization of the Nordschleife could start. “Since November 2022 we have started digging. The first 8.5 kilometers of the circuit are now equipped with 17 kilometers of cable, mainly fiber optic. Unfortunately, we haven’t found any oil during the excavation work,” jokes Stephani.
“Some cameras near the control center have a fixed power supply, and we also have four off-grid systems with solar panels. The Nürgburgring Group is not allowed to just cross the track like that. We don’t own this land. So we have to go all the way around, which makes the situation much more complex.”
From November 2023, Stephani wants to tackle the second part of the circuit. The installation must be completed by March 2024 and Fujitsu can refine the AI model throughout the year. From March 2025, when the new season starts, all work must be completed and the facility ready for operation.
Fujitsu provides the heart of the installation, race control, the necessary computing power and helps to train the AI model. Compared to cameras on public roads, the situation on the Nordschleife is fairly controlled. During the presentation, Nitschmann shows different zones that the cameras have to take into account.
“Everything that happens on the asphalt is tracked. We put labels on the vehicle type so we know if it’s a motorcycle or a car. As soon as it enters a grass zone, an incident is reported. The same happens with stationary vehicles or other abnormal situations.”
According to Nitschmann, you have to work with such an AI model on the Nordschleife. “Nobody can keep an eye on more than 150 turns over 21 kilometers in a row. You need an automated system to handle everything. After the official launch in 2025, we will continue to train and refine the AI model with new, unique situations that will arise.”
The project does not end in 2025 on the Nordschleife. Stephani points out that after the cameras are installed, roadside LED panels will eventually be installed. Once that is over, full digital transformation is a fact. That’s what he points out marshals will always be necessary at official races to be able to help quickly in case of incidents, but for day trippers nothing extra is needed apart from the digital system.
Whether Fujitsu can go in many directions worldwide with this case is questionable. Most circuits around the world are much smaller and only exceptionally open to the public. It’s totally too late to apply the technology to public roads. What it does with the Nürburgring project is outstanding. As a “stiffer” Japanese brand in Europe, that alone is a good step.
Source: IT Daily
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