Two major racing equipment manufacturers – OMP Racing and Marelli – have collaborated to create a new undershirt with vital signs monitoring.
Racing is very different to the sport to the one it was at the turn of the century, when F1 cars had high-pitched V10s, Lando Norris was firmly in his infancy, and, perhaps most significantly, the motorsport was considerably more dangerous.
Nowadays, strides have been made in the direction of making the sport safer, most of which have been made through exponentially-accelerating technological innovation over the last 20 years.
And in 2020, yet another revolutionary safety device has been concieved, produced, and homologated by the FIA to serve motorsport, this time an undershirt with vital signs monitoring. This comes after similar sciences were applied to the racing gloves of drivers.
Produced in a collaboration between OMP Racing and Marelli, the VISM undershirt – given its moniker from the loose acronym of ‘Vital Signs Monitor’ – has an electrocardiogram, as well as sensors that measure thoracic expansion, and monitoring of heart rythm and breath rate – signs of general fatigue. As is customary of such garments, it is fireproof as well.
Here’s the official joint-statement:
“Marelli and OMP Racing are proud to announce the FIA homologation of VISM (Vital Signs Monitor), the first fire-retardant racing undershirt with an integrated system for vital parameters measurement. The undershirt is equipped with Sensitex, textile sensors and a measurement unit, which records and transmits the data.
“VISM allows real time monitoring of the driver’s state of health through the elaboration of ECG (electrocardiogram) and thoracic expansion, both acquired by the sensors. The simultaneous analysis of heart rhythm and breath rate allows the driver performance index to be monitored in real-time, and so immediately identify possible states of stress, fatigue and alteration.
“The VISM biometric undershirt has three principal areas of application: performance monitoring, data collection for training, and safety features thanks to the constant monitoring of vital parameters, in all the different situations encountered during racing. The VISM system is the result of a close and extensive collaboration between Marelli and OMP Racing, two world-class motorsport companies.
“OMP led the project, bringing its experience of safety systems, homologation test procedures and garment manufacture, while Marelli contributed its know-how in motorsport electronics, data acquisition and telemetry. One of the important challenges centered on the management of sensitive biometric data which requires careful and reliable data processing to ensure confidentiality and privacy: the technical solution which provides this guarantee comes from the deep understanding of the motorsport ecosystem by two historic players like OMP and Marelli.”
“Two excellencies working together to project the world of Motorsport into the future: this is what makes us peculiarly proud of the VISM development,” said OMP Racing CEO Paolo Delprato. “The cooperation with Marelli is that kind of teamwork that makes you bless the moment you decided to pick up the phone and propose the project.
“It’s a mutual enrichment and it has produced a great device, which conjugates safety and performance.” At the same time, Ricciardo De Filippi, Senioe VP and CEO of Marelli Motorsport added: “Sharing passion for Motorsport and Innovation. Two fundamental ingredients of the collaboration between Marelli and OMP, leading to the creation of VISM.
“VISM is a tool for professional drivers to monitor biometric data, it is designed with a direct interface to the data acquisition and telemetry systems of a race car and includes end-to-end protection of sensitive data, giving the user full control of its use. We believe this experience is a major step forward in the development of safety systems as well as active driver aids, for passenger cars too.”
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