Autonomous Eletric Vehicle – A tool for the teaching in ECE

This project aims at using the VIENA infrastructure, including an electric vehicle Fiat Seicento Elektra, transformed by a group of DEEC faculty, for research in the field of autonomous electric mobility and (i) help the integration of young IST students through an initial ambiance to a complex system of which general public has a media perception, and (ii) use a real case study with social and economic relevance to illustrate interesting engineering problems in ECE that can be used in Problem Based Learning strategies. What was done The original workplan includes (a) interactive activities involving IST students and the community on Electric Autonomous Vehicles (EAV), (b) inclusion of scientific topics in EAV in the syllabuses of ECE courses, (c) expanding existing subsystems, and (d) development of the project website to disseminate results and also serve as repository and to support the experiments. The interactive activities developed include course assignments by the students of the 1st year course Portfolio MEEC, available at the website of the project (see ahead). The inclusion of EAV topics in course syllabuses through the simulation of trajectory controllers and decision strategies to answer specific events (Robotics course lab assignment) and software to simulate the autonomy of a vehicle from its electrical, mechanical, and aerodynamics characteristics (developed by students of the Energy area, currently available models include Nissan Lead S 2019, BMW i3 2019, Tesla Model X Performance 2020, Hyundai IONIQ 2020, Renault Zoe 2019, Audi E-tron 55 quattro 2019). In addition, invited talks for the MEEC students on the challenges related to the technologies of electric vehicles helped motivating and raising awareness.

VIENA website (to be online before the end of Septmber boa.pt) will act as repository of the activities developed.

The project

2020 – preliminary version at http://viena.tecnico.ulisOther relevant information

Students gave excellent feedback and got very involved in the proposed activities, namely in Portfolio MEEC (approx. 240 students) and Robotics (approx. 70 students). Addressing a multidisciplinary topic such as the Autonomous Vehicles, where social relevance is already well established, is extremely motivating for the students. From a pedagogical standpoint, the topic is well suited to let case-based learning strategies moderate the convergence of beliefs to the scientific reality.

The project can be scaled to many other Curricular Units (CUs), related to electric mobility and autonomy. Sustainability is a priori assured in the context of the aforementioned CUs is a priori assured in the context of the aforementioned CUs.

João Silva Sequeira (joao.silva.sequeira@tecnico.ulisboa.pt) João Fernandes (joao.f.p.fernandes@tecnico.ulisboa.pt) Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

UCs: Robotics and, in the future Electrical Drives and Electrical Vehicles and Electrical Machines