In rememberance: last summer, the SZEnergy Team won Europe’s largest energy efficiency car race establishing a world record. This year, they will again compete in the Shell-Eco Marathon, where they are preparing to defend their title in the traditional urban car category. However, in the self-driving race, after last year’s second place, they now have their eyes on the top step of the podium this year for both categories.
The Széchenyi István University team reached their top ranking after many years of hard work, as they have been competing in the urban concept category since 2013, after the solar class was discontinued.
The championship car is always in dynamic development and changes from year to year because the SZEnergy Team is a student team, with its goal not only primarily to achieve results, but to also educate and professionally development its team members and their new student recruits. At Széchenyi István University, young engineering candidates gain practical experience similar to real projects in the design, construction, and racing activities. For this reason it is important to implement new specification for the car every year. As expected this year wasn’t different and the new rule changes also required some modifications.
This year due to rule changes, more stops during the race will be required, therefore a fixed drive that enables regenerative braking needs to be introduced to the design. The reason for these changes is not only to add difficult functionality to the car, but is also based on previous race experience in earlier years, such as the shade of the LIDAR sensor.
The development of the vehicle’s electronics were presented by István Kecskeméti, head of the team’s electronics development, who warned: although it is gratifying that the consumption has fallen below one watt, it is still necessary to work hard and improve efficiencies again this year. The team’s plan is shave even more time off the car’s energy consumption.
It was a challenge for the electronics department to rethink its autonomous hardware platform design approach. The reason being, this sub-team is responsible for the development and launch of all self-driving functions,including sensors, who’s system although complex on its own has to have all of its control and calculation elements on a single low wattage PCB board, a new specification for this year and a method to reduce energy consumption even more. An additional advantage of the solution is that it can be easily removed from the car allowing the team to reduce vehicle weight and energy consumption in traditional manned races.
In connections with the self-driving functions, Miklós Unger, head of SZEnergy’s autonomous sub-team revealed some details at the car’s inauguration event. He reminded us last year the team reached the top 2 position in the self-driving category. He said, the goal is to be on the champion’s podium again this year. He further explained the challenge ahead will be difficult to achieve for two reasons: firstly, compared to last year, it will be necessary to take the lead in a much wider and stronger competitor’s field, secondly, the organizers have modified the way the competition is conducted, which instead of separate tasks, it will consist of one complex multi-task scenario to be completed.
Once an autonomous system has started the race, the individual teams have no opportunity to intervene until the vehicle reaches the end of the track. With no mid-race intervention allowed, this more complicated operation is a huge challenge for all teams, and therefore required serious preparation both in design and testing.
