ELTRES officially began service in Japan in September 2019, however in 2017 while it was still under development we released a trial kit to check the communication performance of ELTRES. Demonstration experiments using trial kits have been conducted nationwide, but in this blog we introduce the real-time tracking of athletes in the Adventure Race, one of the largest scale experiments.

Adventure Race is considered to be one of the toughest sports on earth. It's not a life-or-death challenge, but it's a race where danger is ever-present. The race must be operated to ensure that there are no major accidents, utilizing the advanced safety management skills of the operation staff who have extensive experience in racing, including such things as prior skill checks for athletes and monitoring the course for dangerous areas.

Shortly after the trial kit was released in September 2017, Adventure Race Japan invited the Adventure Race World Series to be held for the first time in Japan in 2018 as “Adventure Race Japan 2018 in Nagano” (ARJ 2018). The northern to central area of Nagano was chosen for the race area, and the use of ELTRES for safety management was considered.
At the time, real-time GPS tracking was already essential to the safety of adventure racing.
In overseas races, tracking systems using mobile phone networks and satellite communications have been widely used, but satellite communications devices were not available in Japan at that time, and the mountainous terrain of northern Nagano, a candidate site for the race, was such that there were many areas where there was no mobile phone coverage.

That being said, how could we respond to the request to "cover the entire race course from northern to central Nagano?" We had a hard time deciding what to do.
Even with ELTRES, which excels in long-range performance, radio waves do not travel more than the laws of physics allow. As we listened to the race course proposal, looked at an overview of the course, narrowed down the possible candidate sites where we could deploy reception system equipment. First, we conducted radio wave propagation simulations and then conducted field tests in Nagano. We were able to confirm the long-distance performance of ELTRES. Its ability to receive signals that were reflected and diffracted from the bottom of the valley and beyond the ridge were aspects which the development team had not experienced before.

When we were able to demonstrate that ELTRES communication was possible, we moved on to concrete planning, such as the development of terminals, receiving stations, and applications to realize a real-time tracking system.
At the beginning of 2018, the ELTERS receiver list was created based on the feedback of the field test results and the final official race course, and the result was that we realized we needed to install more than 7 receiving stations.
In this case the receiving stations were temporary - only used during the race - so they needed to be managed by staff. With the limited number of development members, it was impossible to operate 7 temporary stations at the same time. Therefore, we decided to use a tracker that uses the 3G network while in the mobile phone area and integrate that location information with the application. There was a section of the race course where the athletes go down the river rafting. The river is next to a winding national road, and it was difficult to cover the entire area using ELTRES because of the complicated terrain. Fortunately, the almost entire area along the national road was covered by 3G, so we were able to considerably reduce the number of ELTRES receiving stations needed.

For the 3G tracking, we asked SORACOM to provide us with a SORACOM Air SIM and a 3G tracker. We also decided to integrate ELTRES and 3G tracking data on the SORACOM platform, which provides a service called “SORACOM Beam” that bundles multiple services together.
ELTRES was responsible for tracking in mountainous areas outside the 3G area, so we decided to reconsider the number and locations of the receiving stations, eventually deciding to operate four stations.
One of the receiving station sites we selected was on a mountaintop outside of mobile phone coverage area where there was no power supply. SKY Perfect JSAT, one of the sponsors of the race, provided satellite lines, and Japan Antenna provided an electrometer with a power source and we took turns watching the reception station during the three-day race.

As for other locations, thanks to the efforts of the staff of the race office, we selected temporary locations such as a minshuku (a private home that operates as an inn), a community center, ski resort facilities. We operated the reception stations from the day before the race so that even new members could become familiar and operate the four stations without problems.

While we had a good idea that the communication was proven, however the tracking application has not been completed yet. There were several ideas, such as whether to modify the apps used in the past adventure races or to use the apps used in the ELTRES demonstration experiment as they were. Trek Track developed by Hakuhodo Eye Studios was integrated into this system to provide real-time location tracking. The only thing left was the trajectory display, but there was not much time for additional development.

When we talked to NSW, our demonstration partner, they offered to provide the IoT platform "Toami" and develop an app. After getting a request from the secretariat, we created a 2D tracking system that can be switched to Trek Track in a surprisingly short time.
With ELTRES and other IoT technologies, finally the tracking system for ARJ 2018 was completed.

During the three-day race from June 15-17, 2018, based on the location information of each team which was transmitted every three minutes, the tracking system was used to allocate staff, provide information to cameramen who enter the mountains and photograph the players, and provide real-time explanations by the chairman of the race committee. We projected the tracking screen with a projector near the race headquarters for the night-time video commentary, but all the eyes including the headquarters staff were glued to the tracking, and finally the race headquarters was moved to the side of the projector. We were glad that the staff with a lot of experience in racing recognized the value this tracking system provided.

When a team was unable to move due to hypothermia, rescue staff waited on the road in the neighborhood in advance, and other measures were taken to ensure efficient management based on the real-time information. We couldn't do any pre-tests with the operation staff, but we were impressed by the safety management skills of the staff who used use the tracking system for the first time.

The race was held continuously, even at night. While monitoring the system at the head office at night, one of the staff commented that in the case of the poor tracking system, if a team got lost in the mountain in the middle of the night, it will be the morning before you can see anything, and you can't know where they are unless the team moves, so the staff will be always worried about accidents and other trouble. However, with the ELTRES tracking system, you can see where the athletes are, and you can feel relieved by seeing exactly where they are, even if they are lost in the difficult terrain. An event that could possibly lead to an accident became an important factor to show the depth of sports. It was the moment we felt new value brought by IoT.

There was some trouble during the three-day race, but the athletes did not have any major accidents and finished the race without any problems. Both the athletes who finished the goal and those who had to retire during the race had smiles on their faces, and we were deeply impressed by their joys and frustrations. The operation staff consisted of not only experienced racers, but also more than 100 other people including locals, media and those related to the tracking system. In the commemorative photo taken right after the event, everyone was smiling, even while feeling tired from the three days of competition.

IT systems are often seen as events in an abstract world that is one step away from the real world, and it is not often felt that they are useful in the real world. However, IoT tracking systems are directly connected to the real world in real time. The information displayed remotely described the race conditions in the mountains in detail as "reality that is there now". We would like to express our gratitude for being involved in the construction of this system and hope that we will be able to realize IoT systems that are close to the real world by utilizing the ELTRES IoT network.

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