Land Rover Ai Looks To Help Ainslie Make History

Land Rover, title and exclusive innovation partner to Land Rover BAR, is applying its data processing power and machine learning expertise to help co-engineer the fastest boat in America’s Cup history, looking to bring the trophy to the UK for the first time.

For over a year, Land Rover engineers have been embedded into the team and are using artificial intelligence to explore and find patterns in sailing performance data to help ‘make the boat go faster’.

During testing, the sailing team receives over 16GB of compressed data per day from sensors on the boat, and the ability to process and make sense of this volume of data is unheard of in sailing, according to the brand. It would have taken weeks to process, but can now be achieved instantaneously with Land Rover’s computing power and real-time analysis.

Sir Ben Ainslie, Land Rover BAR team principal and skipper, said: “The power of intelligent machines is a vital area where Land Rover’s research and development division is adding considerable strength to Land Rover BAR’s challenge to win the America’s Cup. The 34th America’s Cup showed just how important it is to maintain stable flight on the foils through these manoeuvres. Land Rover is helping us understand what makes the difference between staying airborne and crashing back into the waves. We know races can be won or lost by a matter of seconds and this is where Land Rover’s AI could prove the difference.” 

Sensors on the testing boats measure more than 300 variables from fibre optic strain measurement to six-axis accelerometer and sonic sensors which measure the distance from the boat to the water. Richard Hopkirk, Land Rover BAR head of systems and analysis, is acutely aware of the importance this data has in giving the team a competitive edge.

He said: “Unlike a Formula One car – where the engine’s power output can be accurately calibrated – the wind is constantly changing. This makes it difficult to quantify performance improvements when the power input is unknown.

“This is where Land Rover’s machine learning expertise comes in. The intelligent algorithms can sort through vast quantities of data and see patterns in the variables; patterns that could never be recognised by a human analyst; patterns that ultimately can make the difference between winning and losing a race.”