Section: New Software and Platforms

The Vir'Volt prototype

Participants : Thomas Chambrion, Bruno Pinçon.

The European Shell Eco Marathon is an annual competition gathering around 200 high schools and universities. The aim of this race is to travel a given distance (changing from year to yearn, about 16 km in 2013 and 2014) within a given time (39 minutes in 2014). The winning team is the one with the lowest energy consumption (expressed in km/kWh). The EcoMotion Team (EMT) of the École Supérieure des Sciences et Technologies de l'Ingénieur de Nancy (ESSTIN) in France, has been involved for 15 years in the European Shell Eco-Marathon in the categories gasoline, hydrogen and battery electric. In 2014, the prototype Vir'Volt 3 (see Figure 1 ) entered the competition in the battery electric category.

Figure 1. Vir'Volt prototype during a test run in Geoparc race track near Saint Dié in May 2014 (left) and in the neighborhood of Toul in October 2014 (right).

An automatic speed control was embedded in the vehicle. From the velocity measures and a GPS sensor, the dynamics was identified in real time. This identification was precise enough to detect changes in the slope of the track or in wind direction. This dynamics was then used to compute in real time an optimal pair of lower and upper bounds for the speed. These bounds were computed in real time with an embedded low cost micro-controller. The final performance (http://s00.static-shell.com/content/dam/shell-new/local/corporate/ecomarathon/downloads/pdf/europe/2014-results/sem-europe-2014-results-prototype-battery-electric-220514.pdf ) of 533 km$/$kWh is in line with the (human driven) performance of the team in the recent years.