This was my both my first time in Canada and participating in a competition like this. With EcoCAR I have already learned more than I ever imagined about what I am interested in and of what a team is capable. When individuals interested in a common field get together like this the amount of knowledge going around is incredible. What amazes me the most is that the fun stuff is just getting started.
-Jon Thomas
Mechanical Team
TORONTO is the host city of our first competition. The whole Georgia Tech EcoCAR team is excited as a few of our members fly out to Canada to represent our school and team. We’ll be giving a number of presentations and showing our controllers with our Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) system.
We’re excited to show the judges what we’ve put together in the first year and as the competition gets underway we’ll let you know how we’re doing.
Stay tuned!
-Landon Reed (Outreach Coordinator)
Today (1/25/2009) signals the last day of the EcoCAR Winter Workshop. Six of us from the Georgia Tech EcoCAR team headed up to chilly Detroit for about 5 days of training, workshops, and presentations. As Outreach Coordinator I also got to visit the 2009 Detroit Auto Show for Educational Day.
This week has been pretty significant for the challenge as a whole, but also for the GT team. Every university presented their vehicle design architecture, listing their overall strategy and the components they plan to use. It was great to finally see what our co-participating colleges and universities planned to do. Here’s a general breakdown:
-B20 (Biodiesel)–7 teams
-E85 (Ethanol)–7 teams
-H2 (Hydrogen Fuel Cell)–2 teams
-Full Electric–1 team
-PHEV (or E-REV)–8 teams
-2 Mode–6 teams
This list describes the primary techniques the teams are using to cutdown on petroleum consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. If it looks like there are 31 teams from the list, be aware that teams are using a few methods to achieve their collective goal.
The GT team, for example, will be using a 1.6L engine converted to dedicated E85 with the 2 Mode transmission. We’ll also being using an A123 Lithium ion battery pack to help generate and regenerate electricity for mobility of our Saturn Vue. For a full description of our architecture check out the Georgia Tech EcoCAR tab to the left.
All the teams also were spoiled with a visit to the GM Heritage Collection, which is a huge building with a multitude of the most beautiful cars made by GM. I’ve never been enamored by cars…I’ve always found them interesting, but, after visiting this collection of cars that have only been used a handful of times–cars in near mint condition–I’ve grown a little more interested…
After visiting the GM and seeing so many cars and the people that love and make them, I’m starting to realize what a big part of peoples’ lives cars are and have been in the past. I’m sure as soon as we start working on our own EcoCAR I’ll realize this more and more.
Last Wednesday, 9/24/2008, through Sunday, 9/28/2008, I travelled to Detroit, Michigan to attend the EcoCar Fall Workshop. EcoCar is a General Motors (GM) and Department of Energy (DoE) sponsored international collegiate vehicle engineering competition that will take place over a period of three years. EcoCAR seeks to advance the level of vehicle technology capable of reducing petroleum consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while demonstrating the real-world performance of a range of technology options. The Georgia Tech EcoCar team is composed of faculty, undergraduates, and graduates from the College of Engineering.
During the workshop, the Georgia Tech team was introduced to concepts and technologies involving Hybrid & Electric Vehicles, safety critical systems on automobiles, embedded design of automobile controls, automobile modeling with Matlab & Simulink, hydrogen cell battery design, Lithium-Ion battery design/control, and common automobile communication protocols.
As a Systems & Control team advisor, I have to help the team decide between two hardware technologies to implement the hybrid vehicle control strategy: National Instruments’ cRIO with LabVIEW and dSPACE’s MicroAutoBox with Matlab & Simulink. While dSPACE’s hardware is designed specifically for automobile control design, National Instruments’ system is more versatile and will also be used for various testing procedures.
By the end of the workshop, the Georgia Tech team decided that the our preferred architecture for the vehicle will be a parallel hybrid-electric with Lithium-Ion battery cells. The term “parallel” means that both the gas-powered engine and the electric motor can independently supply power to the vehicle’s powertrain.
Currently, the College of Engineering is working to convert part of the Techway building (located next to GTRI’s Food Technology Building) to be used by the Georgia Tech EcoCar team. Also, Georgia Tech is allowing undergraduate students to obtain course credit for participating in the project. One of the challenges with this project will be partitioning the tasks and workload such that undergraduate students can accomplish a specific yet significant task during the course of one semester.
More information about Georgia Tech’s EcoCar progress can be found at www.ecocar.gatech.edu. The EcoCar competition’s website is located at www.ecocarchallenge.org. If you have any desire to help the Georgia Tech EcoCar team, contact Kevin DeMarco at Kevin.DeMarco@gtri.gatech.edu.
-Kevin DeMarco
The GT EcoCar Challenge Team’s website has finally gone live. We had a great time at the summer workshop in Boston last weekend and we are preparing for the September workshop.