Main Sponsors

Premium Sponsors

Sponsors

Favourers

3d-prototyp 9T Labs Aetina DTC AG eco-volta Maxon Motor Optiprint SATWVerkehrszentrum Tuggen

pilatus driverless during Skidpad

AMZ NewsPILATUS DRIVERLESS - ROAD TO FS EAST

The last two months went by with in-credible speed. This can only mean one thing: event season has started! We would like to give you a short update of what we have been up to in the past weeks. As our events came closer and closer, every little detail on both hard-ware and software had to be tested and prepared for the races. Luckily, we had a few chances to test various disciplines at pre-events which helped to stream-line our efforts towards the first event in Hungary!

Preparing for the Dynamic Events

The first place we were able to test the limits of our autonomous system was in Maisach, close to Munich. Every year our long-time main sponsor BMW hosts a big testing day at the BMW Group Driving Experience Center. We and our friends from municHMotorsport (Hochschule München) and Elbflorace (TU Dresden) get the opportunity to test our systems on a huge test track.

Especially for autonomous race cars, run off areas are crucial for a safe tes-ting environment. Starting early in the morning, we managed to increase our top speeds in all the driverless discip-lines and gather a lot of data for further improvement and final verification of our algorithms. Shortly thereafter, we reached our «Software Freeze» milesto-ne, after which no new functionality is added and our focus shifted to tuning algorithms.

The weekend before the event in Hungary we were invited to Wemding by a fellow driverless team StarkStrom Augsburg. What was planned to be a weekend of final tuning turned out to surface a bunch of electrical issues and preparation for scrutineering in the first race in Hungary. Nonetheless it was very impressive to see our friends’ as-tonishing speed and discuss various concepts with them.

Preparing for the Static Events

Formula Student events do not only consist of dynamics; the static discip-lines play an equally important role for a successful event. Autonomous Intel-ligent Driving (AID) hosted an Autono-mous Design Event in Munich. Together with other driverless teams we got the chance to present our design concepts and ideas to their engineers and got valuable feedback.

Thyssenkrupp Presta, our longtime sponsor, invited us to their headquar-ters in Liechtenstein to give us feedback on our Business Plan Presentation. The critique of their Formula Student judges helped uncover and fix weak points in our presentation.

In addition to the input from the ex-ternal statics mock events, we also re-gularly organize internal mock events with alumni of our club. Without the help and feedback of our experienced

All teams competing at FS East © Formula Student East

alumni, we would never be on the level we were able to achieve.

We would like to thank everyone in-volved; without you, we could not have achieved our goals in the static discip-lines!

Formula Student East

For pilatus driverless, the event season started with Formula Stu-dent East at the Zalaegerszeg Automo-tive Proving Ground in Hungary. For the first time in the year, we had to pass all parts of an in-depth scrutineering, face the judges in the statics and prove our-selves on track. After arriving on Tues-day, July 16th, directly from our testing days in Wemding, Germany, we quickly started with setting up our campsite and pit.

The goal of Wednesday and Thursday was to pass all parts of scru-tineering and prepare the car to drive. Luckily, we managed to pass scrutinee-ring without significant issues. Only the brake test proved to be harder than ex-pected. Eventually, we managed to fix the issues that remained, making our car ready for Friday, which would prove to be a very busy day for the team.

All of our static events as well as the Skidpad and Acceleration disciplines were scheduled to take place on Friday, which meant good time management and teamwork were required. We got very positive feedback from the judges and were happy with our performance in the Engineering Design, the Cost & Manufacturing and the Business Plan Presentation Events. A wiring problem overthrew our plan for the day and ever-ything got even busier. We were able to

finish very competitively, having posted the fastest driverless Acceleration time and the second fastest driverless Skid-pad time. In fact, our time of 3.44s in the Acceleration discipline was faster than those of most manually driven cars.

Saturday was the final event day for the driverless teams, with both the Autocross and Trackdrive disciplines scheduled to happen throughout the morning. We started with Autocross, where driverless cars are to set a hot lap around a previously unknown track. We managed to finish a quick lap without hitting any cones. After that, we imme-diately continued with Trackdrive, where pilatus driverless can use the previously collected data to optimize and go even faster. Trackdrive proved to be a true test for the nerves of the our team members. Everyone was on the edge of their seats when our car sud-

Lifting pilatus driverless into scrutineering

Explaining the car to the judges during the statics

Pushing pilatus driverless back to the pit

denly started having localization prob-lems and taking down cones after 8 out of 10 laps. For a few seconds, it was not sure if the car would stay on track or not. When we finally crossed the finish line, the relief was incredible! After ha-ving finished both disciplines, we mana-ged to squeeze in a challenging second Autocross with all parameters pushed to the limit. This proved to decrease lap time even more. However, we hit cones which added up to an overall slower lap time than the first run. With these two disciplines, the busy part of the event was over for us. This left us some time to see other driverless cars and discuss ideas with other teams.

The highlight of Sunday was the award ceremony in the evening. It was rewarding to see how the work of months would yield amazing results. In a total of 10 disciplines, we managed

to get two second places and eight first places. This includes the first pla-ces in overall statics, overall dynamics and also the whole event in total! At this point we would like to thank all of our sponsors and favorers. Without your support, these results would never have been possible. Hereby, we would like to share this special moment with you.

Successes at FS East

Driverless Dynamics: § 1st in Acceleration § 1st in Autocross § 1st in Trackdrive § 2nd in Skidpad

Driverless Statics: § 1st in Engineering Design § 1st in Cost & Manufacturing § 2nd in the Business Plan

1st Overall in the Driverless Class

Outlook

But there is little time to relax now. As soon as one event ends, the prepa-ration for the next one begins. During FS East, we discovered many small things that need improving to ensu-re that we can reach our peak perfor-mance. The upcoming event is Formula Student Germany, the most prestigious event and highlight of the season. The team will be busy preparing pilatus driverless for this new challenge and we hope to see many of our friends, families, sponsors and supporters in Hockenheim!

Strategy meeting before Trackdrive

Main Sponsors

Premium Sponsors

Sponsors

Favourers

3d-prototyp 9T Labs Aetina DTC AG eco-volta Maxon MotorOptiprint SATW Verkehrszentrum Tuggen

pilatus driverless and his FS East trophies

Celebrating a successful Trackdrive

The strong team behind pilatus driverless