Design, build, and test drive a FSAE electric vehicle

Abstract

This study presents a multidisciplinary end‐to‐end design, build, and test drive experience of a Formula Society of Automatic Engineers (FSAE) electric vehicle. The design team members’ background include computer engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering expertise. Each team member worked on a sub‐team namely mechanical, drivetrain, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and battery management system (BMS). The mechanical team modified/redesigned a gasoline FSAE car frame to accommodate the battery pack, cooling systems, electric drive train, and SCADA hardware. The drivetrain team designed a combinational logic‐based tractive system control board to enhance the safety and reliability of the drivetrain. The SCADA team used a model‐view‐controller software architecture and agile development practices to design and implement a custom electric vehicle operating system and the main brain hardware. The BMS team designed the sensing network and communication protocol to provide an update on the state of the health of the energy source. A thorough description of each sub‐system is provided herein. System integration and field test results are also included.