Case-study of an Educational Engineering Project: a Series Hybrid Electric Kart

Abstract

The students enrolled in the Energy Master's program at the K.U.Leuven are expected to study and develop a series hybrid electric go-kart during their first Master year. Their main goal is to develop control algorithms in Matlab/Simulink for the different power electronic modules present on the kart. This allows students to work in small sub-groups, each group focusing on their own specific problem. At the end of the project, the solutions found by the separate groups are combined, and integrated on the kart's single board computer which governs the power electronic modules. If they succeed, students can drive the kart around, while using the wireless link to gather and study real-time current, voltage and speed measurements of the kart in motion.