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Control and test of ecocar

Contact Information

Competition Year: 2016

University: DTU

Team Name: DTU Roadrunners

Faculty Advisers: Jesper Schram

Email Address: s134828@student.dtu.dk, js@mek.dtu.dk

Country: DK

  

Description:

DTU Roadrunners is a team of engaged students at the Technical University of Denmark who build and optimize highly efficient cars for use in the Shell Ecomarathon. The Shell Ecomarathon is a competion in driving with the best fuel economy with 8 different classes divided between 2 types of cars and different means of propulsion. In 2015 DTU Roadrunners set the world record for Urban class cars with Combustion engines with a fuel economy of 665 km/L. This year, 2016, DTU Roadrunners will compete with two cars, an Urban concept class car and a Prototype class car, both with internal combustion engines.

199580_Ecocar.jpg

Figure 1: The presentation of the car 2015 for Prince Joachim of Denmark

 

Products:

 

The Challenge:

The challenge at DTU Roadrunners is to create cars that are as efficient as possible that can compete in the Shell Ecomarathon. To be able to do this it is necessary to effectively control and test the cars and their engines. To fulfill this goal it is necessary to have a control unit that is flexible and easily can handle different car and engine setups.

 

The Solution:

To solve this challenge similar labview code has been employed in both cars as they are running with similar engines and similar setups. The main diffence between the cars is because of weight considerations a SBRio has been used in the Prototype class car. For making the cars most efficient 4 different main problems had to be solved. These were an efficient ECU (Engine Control Unit), a Closed Loop injection control system, an Automatic Gear and a means of Data Logging.

 

Video 1: The ecocar competing in Shell Ecomarathon Amsterdam

 

ECU

The ECU has been made more efficient through the recent years. This year though the team has renewed the code written in LabView in hopes of making the code as optimal as possible. On the ECU all the calculations for the different parts of the car is executed. The calculations makes it possible to control the ignition timing, injection, servo for the gears, starter and lights on the car besides being able to monitor the status of the engine by measuring the temperatures, revolutions and speed of the car. On the steering wheel a bunch of signals are send to the ECU which are used to give the driver the control of the car.

 

Closed Loop Injection control

The closed loop injecton control system is executed on the ECU to ensure that the car is running as efficiently as possible no matter the condition and temperature the car is running in. It monitors the exhaust for the excess air ratio and adjust the injection accordingly.

 

Automatic Gear

While the driver is running the car on the course there is alot of events for the driver to act on taking up the focus of the driver. To ease the stress of the driver an automatic gear has been implemented on the ECU making it more likely for the engine running in the most optimal area increasing the chances of a successful run.

 

Data Logging

Before and during the competion in the Shell Ecomarathon it is important to be able to test the car and analyse the data being able to optimize the car for the next run. Here data logging is a very useful tool making it easy to import the data into a computational software. With help from the data it is possible to simulate the run and finding the optimal strategy for the race. This information is given to the driver that will try to follow these commands as well as possible.

18034270622_e37135304c_b.jpg

 

 

Why LabVIEW

Highly flexible and easy to program. The hardware is robust which was shown in 2015 when the car caught fire but the NI Hardware still functioned afterwards after some light maintenance. Most students does not have an electrical or software engineering background but labview is simple enough to use so that these students can program the hardware.

 

Conclusion

Through tests we were able to optimize the car and through the National Instruments hardware and software it was possible to make an efficient ECU, and set a world fuel efficiency record - 665 km/L 

Comments
RER
NI Employee (retired)
on

INCREDIBLE!! You make me proud to be an engineer!

Two questions...

  1. To confirm, was the cRIO installed in the 2015 Urban car when it set a new world record?
  2. Do you think that the improvements you have made to the car and your control code will allow you to break your own record in London?

Regardless, I wish you every success in this years EcoMarathon! I ♥ the DTU Roadrunners!!

Rich Roberts
Senior Marketing Engineer, National Instruments
Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-roberts-4176a27b/
RER
NI Employee (retired)
on

Ref: This AWESOME article.

DTU Roadrunners rise from the ashes to set new world record

Sorry, I have a 3rd question!

#3. The fire that you refer to above (that the cRIO survived), did that really happen two days before the race in which you broke the world record???

That is incredible! They could make a movie about that!

Rich Roberts
Senior Marketing Engineer, National Instruments
Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-roberts-4176a27b/
Frausing
Member
Member
on

Thanks for your enthusiasm, always great to hear from someone interested

In regards to your questions:

1: Yes the cRIO was installed in the car in 2015 and we have actually been using a cRIO for controlling the car for some years now.

2. As it is a new track this year in London we will at first just like to tangent our old record. This because the track is more challenging and we believe it is more difficult to get a really great result compared to the track in Rotterdam. But as we are driving on this track the next 3 years we have enough time to adjust to the challenges and hopefully next year when we have some more experience (and even more improvements) we can break the record.

3. The fire last year was a crazy story and a great challenge. We were woken up by the guards at 3 am in the morning and told there had been a fire in our pit. As we arived at the scene our engine bay had completely burned out and at first it was not to save. But instead of giving up we gave it our all and 48 hours later the car was rebuild and we went through the technical control. We then had 1 training session and at our second race attempt we set the new record of 665 km/L. So basically a fantastic story that shows that with alot of hard work almost anything is possible.

Hope this answers all your questions and thanks for all the support

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