The Development of an Integrated Control System for the Formula Student Car when Moving along a Specified Track

Formula Student (Formula SAE) is a series of student engineering competitions where a Formula Student car prototype has to be designed, built and tested. Teams of Russian universities, including the BMSTU take part in these competitions.  The article provides brief technical information about the race cars created by the BMSTU. At the designing stage it is quite difficult to assess the impact and feasibility of certain design decisions, for example, those that improve the speed of completing a lap of a particular track while ensuring the safety level set by the race regulations. The use of computer-based mathematical simulation is an efficient method to solve this problem at the designing stage.  The mathematical model of the Formula Student car movement is developed. It can predict the characteristics of curvilinear movement along a given track with various design options, including control systems.  To automate the control process, that is to exclude the human factor, a control strategy is proposed, which includes steering, braking system and transmission. The results of numerical modelling of the car dynamics when moving along a given route with a functional integrated control system has proven its efficiency.

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