newsletter March 2018
Suspension
Lay up - curing - weigh in.
Rim Production is on a Roll! Text: Fredrik Cappelen, Rims The final CAD model and drawings of the rim center were sent to our partner Mjøs Metallvarefabrikk AS only four weeks ago. This marked the ending of the design and planning phase. Only a few days after this was done, myself, Truls, and Håkon from the monocoque group arrived at the facilities of Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace to start the production phase. The first couple of days consisted of cutting, sorting, and labeling about 2000 plies of carbon fiber. It was an intense and challenging experience for the three of us. A few days in, me and Håkon moved into the Krona composite laboratory. Here we were given access to all the necessary tools (including an autoclave) to build our products. Credits to the staff and students there, who were very friendly and willing to share their facilities with us. Revolve coach Christer Kobbevik Oldeide, who recently moved to Kongsberg, gave me a great start at Krona by sharing his knowledge and showing techniques he learned from last year’s production. The next day, former Revolve member, Maria Bjelland, arrived to help us. Her contribution and knowhow ramped up the speed and quality of the production, and we ended up finishing the rim shells almost a week ahead of schedule. The way alumni members dedicate their time to assist succeeding members say a lot about the team spirit and passion we have at Revolve. You need an “A -team” for several years before you can produce your first “A- car”; I think this could be the year where both ensue for us. Back in Trondheim, the assembly phase is about to begin, as the centers and shells are soon to arrive from final machining. I am very excited to see how they fit and perform together. Follow us on social media for updates if you are too.
Sneak peek from the CNC at Mjøs Metallvarefabrikk AS.
Two newborns and proud father.
Driverless
End-to-End Deep Learning for Our Self-Driving RC Car Text: Morten Smebye, AI Specialist
An important goal for the current team is to build a solid foundation for the next driverless team. Because of this, experimentation with several different approaches is essential, such that we can find both the strengths and weaknesses of these methods. This is one of the main reasons as to why we chose to research end-to-end deep learning. In our end-to-end approach we use a convolutional neural network, heavily inspired by nVidias PilotNet. The network maps raw pixels directly to steering commands for our RC car. We use Keras to implement the network, a high level neural network python library, designed to enable fast experimentation with deep neural networks.
An important advantage with an ‘end-to-end’ approach is that no demanding labeling of images is required. To gather training data, we simply drive our RC car around a track. While driving we record steering commands from the Arduino connected to the car and images from our front-facing camera. However, it is important to vary both the track layout and the environment in which we drive, so that the trained network is prepared for a large amount of real world situations. The current performance of the trained network has exceeded all our expectations. The car manages to maneuver complex tracks it has never seen before, and is not prone to noise like people moving in the background. On RevolveDagen we ended up using our ‘end-to-end’ network as it showed to be the most reliable system at that time. We are currently researching the best way to utilize the system on Eld.
Accumulator & Housing
High Voltage Battery Preparations Text: Fabian Skarboe Rønningen, Accumulator
The high voltage battery contains 280 lithium polymer cells. The configuration is 140 in series and 2 in parallel. So how do we connect these 280 cells to each other in a safe manner and with as little resistance as possible? The answer is welding. Keep in mind every battery cell has two poles, one plus and one minus. A local goldsmith in Trondheim, Gullsmed KarlgĂĽrd AS, welds each and every battery cell to each other by welding one minus pole to the next plus pole and so on, using a laser welding technique. Using this technique makes sure the welds are very precise and have almost as low electrical resistance as ideal
copper. This ensures that the current flow is as good as possible, and that there is minimal heat loss in the battery package. But the cells are not just welded together, they are also welded onto one of our inhouse developed circuit boards, the High Current Printed Circuit board (HCPCB). By doing this, we can read all the temperatures and voltages over every cell pair, and closely monitor these readings when testing and driving.
Event
Autonomous Racing Workshop in Hamburg Text: Bendik Holm, Accumulator The last weekend of February, eleven members of our Driverless team attended a workshop on autonomous racing in Hamburg. The workshop was hosted by e-gnition Hamburg, who placed 3rd in the Driverless Vehicle class in Hockenheim last summer. The purpose of the workshop was to pool resources and share knowledge, to accelerate the evolution of the entire Driverless competition. More than 100 students from 16 teams attended the event - twice as much as the hosts had expected. The other teams were primarily from Germany, but Chalmers from Gothenburg and AMZ from Zßrich also made the trip. We were overwhelmed by e-gnition’s hospitality. They picked us up at the airport, let us stay with them in their student housing and provided everything we needed for the duration of the workshop.
The workshop was organised into a series of open discussions on topics proposed by the attendees, in addition to two very interesting presentations by two of the event sponsors. We learned a lot from the other teams, particularly from the second year teams, but we were pleasantly surprised to learn that we had a lot to bring to the table. Equally important, this was a also a social event. Attending the workshop gave us a unique opportunity to bond with students from other teams, as well as strengthen the bonds with our own team members. It was a much needed break from the busy student life, and a morale booster that will carry us through spring until we meet the same people at the competitions in Germany and Hungary.
15 teams from five countries and over 100 participants attended the workshop. Photo: e-gnition Hamburg.
The Board
Welcome to the Board of Revolve NTNU Team 2019 Text: Aida Angell, Marketing Manager
From the left: Odin Aleksander Severinsen (Chief Electrical Engineer), Eirik Bodsberg (Chief Mechanical Engineer) and Anders Fagerli (Chief Driverless Engineer). Not present: Karoline Halvorsen (Project Manager) and Helge Bergo (Deputy Project Manager & Financial Manager). Our project is currently in its production phase. We have designed all our parts, validated the results and tested our prototype PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards). The board is already looking towards next year’s team. The current board has gained a lot of experience, and they have a good idea of potential improvements on the mechanical, electrical and autonomous systems, and the organisation as a whole. In March, we had our board admission. We had a lot of great applicants and ended up with a board we think can bring Revolve NTNU to new heights. We wish to accept the board early, so they not only can learn a lot about the organisation and how everything works, but also get a feeling of how the Revolve NTNU lifestyle is. This way, they will be well prepared to lead the organisation when they form the new team in August.
At this time, we are still searching for a suitable applicant for the marketing manager position. We’re confident the members of the new board will do a great job leading the organisation forward. We believe they will develop great technical solutions and create an amazing team. The board of Team 2018 and the Board of Team 2019 will work closely the next couple of months to make sure the knowledge transfer between the two teams is sufficient, and work to incorporate the new board into the organisation so they continue the effort of improving our organization. The members of Team 2018 wishes the new board the best of luck!
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