Unmanned Formula Racing, Northern Polytechnic students want to build "ground aircraft carrier"

The world's first unmanned student Formula One car debut

Some people have doubts: Can such undergraduates participate in such high-tech unmanned vehicles? The team members told reporters that 15 of the 41 undergraduate students are reserve members in the freshman and sophomore grades. At this stage, they basically do not participate in research and development. They are mainly the reserve force of the team and the second echelon. It is also the potential of the future. "successor".

At present, the unmanned racing team of 74 students is divided into five research groups: perception and navigation, vehicle control, power battery, drone, and vehicle platform to solve the problem together. The new "ground carrier" is expected to go offline before August 20 this year as a gift from the students to the "Teacher's Day."

In addition, in October of this year, the upgraded version of the "Ugly Car" will also appear in the Chinese University Formula Racing competition.

At the 14th Beijing International Auto Show held not long ago, a car that looked ordinary and even "ugly" appeared in the exhibition hall where the production cars gathered. It looked so inconspicuous.

However, this "ugly car" with a simple appearance is not small. It is the world's first unmanned undergraduate formula car. It has initially had four core technologies: independent motor drive stability control, first-view remote control, environment perception and pedestrian tracking, and autonomous driving.

Even some key technical indicators of the "Ugly Car" have reached the world's advanced level. For example, it takes only 3 seconds for the remote control to travel from zero to 100 km/h, the maximum longitudinal acceleration for semi-autonomous driving reaches 0.9G, and the maximum lateral acceleration reaches 2G.

Behind this "ugly side" "Ugly Car" is an unmanned racing team of 74 North Polytechnic students. After three months of exploration and experimentation, this group of young students created the “principal verification vehicle” with the “world number one” in January this year.

In March of this year, under the leadership of the instructor Hu Jibin, they began to develop a larger-sized, more beautifully-looking unmanned vehicle, the “ground carrier”. The "ground carrier" unmanned body will be designed with a gimbal equipped with a drone, and a small robot that can be freely accessed and placed inside, allowing the "eye" drone to cooperate with the unmanned vehicle. Not only that, but the "ground carrier" also uses cutting-edge technology such as four-wheel hub motor drive, all-wheel steering, active suspension, and first-angle remote control.

The German stadium was stimulated and returned to the country to create an "ugly car"

Guan Chaowen is the captain of the North Polytechnic Unmanned Racing Team and the second-year student of the School of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering. Talking about the birth of the "ugly car", he admitted that the following determination to build this unmanned car was largely due to "stimulation" during the German competition.

It turned out that in August last year, Guan Chaowen and several teammates took a tram to Germany to participate in the Formula Student Car Competition. At the game site, Guan Chaowen found that the German tram technology has reached the world's top level. In contrast, his own tram is somewhat "backward".

"At the time, we were ridiculed. We secretly made up our mind that we must achieve a corner overtaking in the unmanned cutting-edge technology. If there is still a chance to come to Germany in August next year, we must get a car without a car and give them Look." Guan Chaowen said.

Back to school, the team members chose a "Silver Shark II" electric car launched by Beijing Institute of Technology in 2013. Based on the existing structure, they were "unmanned" and unmanned. Racing.

They try to cut off the perception channel first, give a path, see how the unmanned car can run fast, and purely study the unmanned dynamics problem.

"The image is to turn the car into a 'slow scorpion'. He knows which path he needs to follow along his way, but he doesn't know what obstacles he will encounter along the way. What happens? Because The track is generally empty, similar to the ideal road conditions, so it is the best environment for the test." The players explained.

In October last year, they recruited more than 50 undergraduate and master students in the school's name in the name of “the unmanned racing team”, formally established a research and development team, and started the construction of unmanned racing cars.

"In the three months from the beginning to the 'landing', every step went hard, and the technical problems were not solved smoothly," the team members said.

The team members mentioned that the first step in solving the problem is to smoothly implement the remote-controlled driving technology and ensure that the quality of the mechanical system and the signal system have passed. "The remote-controlled test is a time-consuming, patience-testing but impossible to be jumped. The stage is too difficult."

The core technology involved in the remote test phase is the first perspective remote control technology. In plain language, the first perspective remote control technology is to let the camera on the car send the real-time image of the car to the computer. The operator sits in front of the computer, observes the real-time status of the car through the computer screen, and then uses the remote control according to the observed situation. The facility controls and adjusts the driving path of the car.

At present, the car has been able to drive remotely very smoothly, and the first-view remote control technology has become the most mature core technology of this "ugly car".

The players said that the current car has completed 95% from the hardware point of view, and has completed more than 80% from the program and software, but from the perspective of test and test, it may only be completed 60%, there are still many The aspects need to be perfected.

"Ugly car" domineering turned into "ground aircraft carrier"

In fact, as a principle verification vehicle, the "Ugly Car" has been very powerful in hardware configuration: it uses a wheel-driven dual-motor design in terms of power, with a peak power of 80 kW; the battery uses a single cell of lithium iron phosphate... ...

However, due to the limitations of the "principal verification vehicle" architecture. As a result, starting in March of this year, the team decided to “start another stove” and is studying another unmanned vehicle with a larger size, a more beautiful appearance and more advanced technology.

In terms of sensing technology, the new car and the "principle verification car" are basically in the same line, but there are many innovations and changes in mechanical technology and other aspects, such as the application of cutting-edge technology such as wheel motor technology, all-wheel steering technology, and body self-adjustment.

However, the students' "ambitions" did not stop in this new car, they are still carrying out one of the most breakthrough technological innovations - "unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned vehicle linkage technology." They want to "use the plane to explore the road." "Because the plane is flying higher, it will be higher, farther and wider, and the information obtained will definitely be more adequate." "Using an airplane to explore the road" is to try to design a gimbal on the unmanned vehicle, equipped with a drone, and let the drone enter the eyes of the unmanned vehicle, and then the scene that is seen is processed into a path or map. Passed back to the unmanned vehicle.

This new car, which allows the drone and the unmanned vehicle to work together and adopts the high-tech such as the hub motor drive, is called "ground aircraft carrier" by teammates and is domineering.

However, the team members admit that this technological innovation attempt faces many challenges, including signal communication problems between “unmanned aerial vehicles” and “unmanned vehicles”, distance problems, and map construction angle issues.

"We anticipate that it will be more difficult to try this new model, but the problem is there, always trying to solve it," the team members said.

In March of this year, in order to develop new unmanned racing cars and "ground aircraft carriers", the unmanned racing team carried out the second round of recruiting. At present, the team has a total of 74 people, including 41 undergraduates, 27 master students, and 6 doctoral students.