Students’ Participation to Improve Formula SAE Car

Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (FSAE) competition provides opportunity for students to enhance their engineering design and project management skills by applying learned classroom theories in a challenging competition. The engineering design goal for teams is to develop and construct a single-seat race car for the non-professional weekend autocross racer with the best overall package of design, safety, construction, performance and cost. One such improvement has been the implementation of a telemetry and data acquisition system. Data acquisition can be further used to improve the performance of the car on the fly. A telemetry and data acquisition system allows the collection and interpretation of data from sensors, actuators and other relevant critical sub-systems with the car. The collected information enables the team to diagnose and solve issues with the car as well as programming tools, simulation tools, and other procedures used to create the working telemetry and data acquisition system. The system is based on an Arduino Mega microcontroller and its shields, which gathers and transmits data from multiple sensors that measures parameters such as suspension travel, throttle, brake position, steering angle, fuel pressure, lateral/longitude/vertical acceleration, engine coolant temperature and many more sensor values from the Engine Control Module (ECM) via CANBUS. Though, many of these devices were not meant to work directly with one another, the use of communication protocols allowed the system to successfully relay data back to the pit via graphical display for assessment by the participating FSAE team. An overview of the construction of the Formula SAE car, telemetry and data acquisition system, equipment and utilized software will be given. Students’ participation and involvement are key factors in the successful completion of the project. The goal of this paper is to explain the concepts and design of the system; components, sensors, actuators, relevant software, calculations, challenges, and the methodologies used to overcome the problems with the system. Students’ involvement and their participation constitutes other parts of the paper.