Formula Student

Electrification and automation of the transportation industry with KTH Formula Student

TEXT KTH FORMULA STUDENT

In KTH formula Student, we are interested in empowering students to engineer the future of e-mobility. we are a group of students from KTH developing a driverless as well as an electric car. we compete in the worlds biggest engineering competition against the top universities around the world, with the mission of becoming the top performing team in Scandinavia.

KTH Formula Student was founded in 2003, and after a long history with combustion and electric vehicle developments made its leap for a driverless car in 2017. With the completion of the driverless software pipeline, our team took part in the Formula Student Germany competition at Hockenheimring in August 2019, gaining first-hand experience and exposure in Formula Student’s driverless era. We are now aiming to further improve our driverless

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system with robust cutting-edge solutions, in order to take part in next years’ competitions not merely as participants, but as pioneers in the field. Our work in the driverless software development team involves areas of control and motion planning, computer vision, deep learning, point cloud processing, optimization, localization, and mapping. The driverless pipeline is divided into 3 main blocks, namely Perception, Localisation & Mapping, and Navigation. Firstly, the traffic cones defining the boundaries of the racetrack are detected via computer vision and deep learning techniques, as well as processing of output from a LiDAR sensor. Then a map of the track is built, and the pose and speed of the vehicle are estimated. Finally, an optimal trajectory is determined, and the vehicle is controlled to track the defined trajectory on the race track using vehicle states such as acceleration, speed and steering input.

As part of building an electric vehicle an electrified powertrain needs to be developed which is the responsibility of the Powertrain team. The powertrain of a formula student car includes building the 600-volt battery and developing the electronics for it, as well as setting up and tuning the motors and inverters.

Apart from high voltage electronics, the car also is in requirement of low voltage electronics which is developed by the Electronics team. The Electronics team is responsible, among others, for the development of the Main Control Unit (the heart of our car), the vehicle measurement unit collecting and processing all measurement data, safety circuitries and setting up the CANBUS system that goes through the whole car.