Through an innovative voice recognition project, every NASCAR Cup Series radio conversation will be tracked and transcribed in real-time to amend the racing strategy and provide race analytics.
Main challenges
- Real-time detection, recognition and transformation from speech to text
- Tracking key and relevant conversations
- Analysis of discussions and plans of competing teams
- Voice data analytics to improve Hendrick Motorsports’ competitive edge
Key requirements
- Real-time voice-to-text transformation engine
- Automatic filtering (excluding noise, irrelevant sounds, etc.)
- Machine intelligence engine to automatically highlight the most important messages
- Intuitive UI for race management and product configuration
Data points
- Number of speech phrases per race: 25,000
- Up to 120 voice messages per minute on average
- Up to 16 messages per second
- 31 hours total time for analysis per race
- 10 GB of data per race
Key benefits
- All communications could be tracked in a single intuitive interface in real time
- None of the messages are missed as everything is noted and transcribed
- Data collection and analytics for all previous races
- Continuous improvement in MI-based voice recognition
- Powerful voice analytics tools
- Up to 40% of “noisy messages” are automatically filtered
Background
Hendrick Motorsports is an American professional auto racing organization that competes in the NASCAR Cup Series. The team was founded in 1984 as All Star Racing by Rick Hendrick. Hendrick Motorsports has won a NASCAR-record 301 Cup Series races and 14 Cup Series owners and driver championships, with three Truck Series owners and drivers titles and an Xfinity Series driver’s crown.
Hendrick Motorsports has implemented Constructor’s Race Comms application to be used in NASCAR Cup Series. The application provides a unique voice recognition system to transform all real-time voice communications from racers, engineers, strategists, and support staff into text and use the acquired data to improve racing strategy.
Constructor has a well-established team of Machine Intelligence (MI) engineers who have developed a voice recognition system capable of processing large volumes of data in real time. Constructor’s Race Comms for Hendrick Motorsports is one of the many cases where Constructor is involved in helping sports teams develop bespoke technology to achieve strategic goals.
This is Constructor's second MI project for Hendrick Motorsports. In the previous project, image analytics based on computer vision and MI were implemented. These solutions identify events and process large amounts of data during the race, enabling Hendrick Motorsports to analyze performance and adjust strategy in real-time.
The challenges
Hendrick Motorsports stands as one of the leading teams in the fiercely competitive NASCAR Cup Series, where victory demands utmost passion, knowledge, and skill. The competition extends beyond the racing track, involving not only the racers but also the support, technical, and management teams. To gain an edge, Hendrick Motorsports continually seeks opportunities to empower its racers.
One crucial tool used by all teams is NASCAR Radio, facilitating live communication among racers and their support teams. However, optimizing its efficiency poses a challenge due to the vast amount of real-time data to analyze. With 40 broadcast channels for a 3.5-hour race, the volume of voice messages adds up to 31 hours, and during critical moments, message intensity peaks at 16 messages per second, making it challenging to process crucial information amidst the rapid influx.
In the pursuit of success, the ability to monitor all voice communications in real-time holds immense value. It offers essential race insights, providing vital information on the track's current situation and competitor plans, enabling more informed and strategic decision-making.
The solution
After a thorough analysis of the current situation, Constructor offered Hendrick Motorsports the MI voice recognition solution – Race Comms. The solution automatically recognizes and transcribes all sentences to text in real-time.
The real-time voice-to-text transformation engine features automatic filtering, which excludes noise, irrelevant sounds, and has a switchable filter to mask informal words and phrases. Based on MI algorithms, it consistently learns to recognize specified voices with the highest recognition ratio.
The machine intelligence engine automatically highlights the most important messages based on Hendrick Motorsports’ input and continuously shapes its algorithms to provide the most actual information.
Intuitive user interface for race management and product configuration allow to replay or reread phrases, track dialogues, and automatically switch between dialogues depending on the situation on the track.
The benefits
With Race Comms, Hendrick Motorsports can now track all communications in a single application and, in real-time. The application features an intuitive user interface for race management and configurable options to track and mark important messages and dialogues. Automatic filtering excludes noises and irrelevant phrases, allowing the support team to spend less time listening and more time making weighted decisions.
Not a single message is missed as everything is noted and transcribed. All data is collected and analyzed easily for future strategic decisions.
“Constructor’s Sports technology allows us to spend less time listening to voice communications and free up resources for more critical tasks during the race. With Constructor’s solution on board, Hendrick Motorsports can make balanced decisions with data evidence, respond quickly to changes in the situation and, overall, move closer to victory,” says Alba Colon, Director of Technical Partnerships.
“This is the second project for our team completed by Constructor. We appreciate the successful partnership with Constructor. They have proven to be real professionals in the field of modern information technology and MI in particular."
"It is a real pleasure to work with Hendrick Motorsports, professional and passionate sport lovers, who are always open to new cutting-edge technologies. Race Comms is our second project for Hendrick Motorsports. We are confident that this project will help Hendrick Motorsports achieve more wins and become the new standard in the Sports industry,” – adds Nick Dobrovolskiy, CTO of Constructor.
About Hendrick Motorsports
Hendrick Motorsports is an American professional auto racing organization that competes in the NASCAR Cup Series. The team was founded in 1984 as All Star Racing by Rick Hendrick. Hendrick Motorsports has won a NASCAR-record of 301 Cup Series races and 14 Cup Series owners and driver championships, with three Truck Series owners and drivers titles and an Xfinity Series driver’s crown. Additionally, the team has 26 Xfinity Series race wins, 26 Truck Series race wins, and 7 ARCA Racing Series race wins.
About Constructor
Constructor is an all-in-one platform for education and research. With expertise in machine intelligence and data science, Constructor is built to cater to the needs of schools, higher education, corporate training, alternative credentials, and sports teams.
From infrastructure to applications, Constructor elevates learning experiences, empowers educators, and drives research breakthroughs. The company is headquartered in Switzerland with a presence in the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany, Singapore, Spain, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Turkey.