newsletter January 2018
Driverless
LiDAR Technology Text: Jakob Løver, Sensors Our main detection algorithm currently uses a stereo camera to find the positions of the cones, located on a course. However, we have recently been introduced to LiDARs and we are extremely excited to test out this new technology on our car this year! A LiDAR works by firing off a beam of light, measuring the time it takes for the beam to bounce back and recording the angle the beam was fired off at. They are perfect for spatial mapping because they are very accurate and provide a detailed view of our surroundings. These kind of devices are not cheap, and we have been extremely fortunate to have brought Velodyne on board as a sponsor for our Driverless team. They have contributed nothing less than a VLP-16 LiDAR: one of the newest, smallest and most advanced products in their 3D LiDAR product range. It is compact and light, but packs a punch, mapping 300.000 points per second at a 100 meter range. To detect cones, we label the points that make up the cones and feed this data through a recurrent convolutional neural network (RCNN). This is done through Keras, a high level neural network API that runs on top of TensorFlow. Since Keras is written in Python, it’s a perfect match for our ROS architecture.
Point cloud of a few cones visualized in RViz.
Mechanical
Plug Revolve NTNU Text: Fredrik Schmidt, Chief Mechanical Engineer
The monocoque replica takes it final shape, one layer at the time. Our monocoque tool arrived the 15 of January and it was a big moment for the entire team. It was milled by our loyal sponsor Shape AS which have made all our monocoque tools since 2014. The tool gives the whole team a good understanding of how this years car is going too look like. It has been a long road from concept, packaging, design iterations and finally locking the design for CAD approval, before sending it to production. From now on it will be sanded and the lacquered before it will be used to create this years monocoque. It will be used to create the CFRP tooling which is then used to produce the monocoque at our main sponsors facilities. We are looking forward to get the production phase started and ready to create this years car. To get the monocoque tool in house is both a great milestone as a symbol that the production phase has begun.
Social
Break Faster! Text: Aida Angell, Marketing Manager On the 3rd of January, all the team members were back from their Christmas break and ready to get an early start on the project. Each year we have a week of preparation before the school starts and our timetable fills up with classes. This year we had a small week from 3rd to 7th of January. Here the members get back into their work, and can focus solely on their system. In addition to letting each member work on their system, we had several workshops. Since all the 3D drawings of all the mechanical systems are done, we had a one-day class on how to make machine drawings. This was very useful for our members. Besides the machine drawing class for the mechanical groups, the electronics group finished up the soldering of the prototypes for this years printed circuit boards. The marketing group also came up with two good concepts to the static event Business Presentation for both EV and DV. All in all it was a good week for our members. The transition from vacation to work went smoothly and we are super excited to show you the final designs at the reveal in the beginning of May!
Andreas from K-Tech teaching us about machine drawings and tolerances.
Event
2018 Formula Student Competitions Text: Nadia Chaudry, Event Manager Over the last few months, we have spent countless hours practicing for the registration quizzes for the Formula Student competitions we aim to participate in this summer; Formula Student Germany (FSG) and Formula Student East (FSEast, Hungary) for both our EV and DV teams, and Formula Student Austria (FSA) for our EV team. All three competitions had their registration quizzes on the 22nd of January. Over one hundred teams participate in these quizzes. After a long and adrenaline-filled day, the time we invested in preparing for the quizzes had finally paid off. We are proud to announce that we will be participating at FSG with both our EV and DV teams. DV are also qualified for FSEast, whilst EV are first on the waiting list. In addition, EV are fourth on the waiting list for FSA. We are extremely excited about qualifying for these competitions, and we are looking forward to meeting and competing against some of the best Formula Student teams in the world this summer.
Receiving the FSEast results.
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