The race is on with KTH Formula Student self-driving vehicle
24 JULY 2019
Formula Student (FS) is an annual engineering competition for university students around the world, that sees teams compete in static and dynamic events.
It’s not just any race. Formula Student is backed by both the F1 industry and high-profile engineers such as patron Ross Brawn, a former motorsport engineer and F1 team principal.
It’s Europe’s most established educational motorsport competition, and celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2018.
Participating teams must design and engineer a smaller formula racing car to compete with at Silverstone in England, and teams are also able to qualify for prestigious races at Riccardo Paletti Circuit in Italy, as well as German Hockenheim.
“It’s extremely hard to qualify to Hockenheim, so we are delighted to have succeeded and are truly looking forward to our appearance there,” says Fredrik Danielsson. He’s a Master Thesis student at Scania and Project Manager for the team from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm; KTH Formula Student team, consisting of 80 students who are working with the year-long project as well as putting in great effort in their academic studies. “The project is all about learning to work as a team and produce a high-quality product together.”
Building an autonomous and electrified car
Scania has been a sponsor of KTH Formula Student for many years, and in 2019 the challenge for the team is to manufacture an autonomous and electrified car. The team will compete in two classes, Electric and Driverless vehicles. In Italy, the competition is with a driver, and powered by electricity. In Germany, only the top-teams are represented, and the event is exclusively for autonomous vehicles.
Tech-skills lead to work
All the students’ skills come in handy in the project. The majority are studying mechanical, industrial, electro or vehicle engineering.
“We want to secure future competence in these specific areas of engineering. We encourage initiatives like this, these students have the knowledge we need to be the leader in sustainable transport solutions,” says Patrik Johannesson, Talent Relations Manager, Employer Branding, Scania.
FACTS about the car:
- Weight: 219 kilogrammes
- Battery capacity: 6,3 kWh
- Power: 80 kW
- Maximum speed: 155 km/h
- From 0-100 in 3,5 seconds
FACTS about the competitions:
- Formula Student Italy – FS ATA Competition website: https://www.formula-ata.it/
- Date: 24 – 28 July 2019
- Competing in electric class, as car no. 171
- Formula Student Germany – FSG Competition website: https://www.formulastudent.de/
- Date: 5-11 August 2019
- Competing in driverless class, as car no. 471
The competitions include several challenges which are both static events and dynamic events. Judges award points to the team from each event, based on several factors. The points are then tallied to award the team their final score.
The Static events
- Business plan presentation
- Cost report
- Engineering design event
- The Dynamic events
- Acceleration
- Skid pad
- Autocross
- Endurance
- Energy efficiency
