ENGI NEERI NG TEAM

I NFORMATI ON, REQUI REMENTS

AND DELI VERABLES
What is AVTC Program?
Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition, Managed by Argonne National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of
Energy in partnership with the U.S. domestic automotive industry
Elite network of more than 93 educational institutions that have participated in AVTCs over the programs 26-year
history
An un-paralleled educational experience that will change future career path of students and provide immense
growth opportunities.


Mission
Stimulate the development of advanced
propulsion and alternative fuel
technologies
Provide the training ground for the next
generation of automotive engineers
How mission is achieved:
Provide real-world, hands-on, systems-level engineering
challenges for students
Challenge students to design, build and refine advanced
technology vehicles
Mimic the auto industrys vehicle development process
Utilize industry-leading engineering tools, components
and hardware
Prepare students to be future engineering leaders that
will transform the auto industry for generations to come
Introducing EcoCAR3
Four year collegiate automotive engineering
competition series

Technical challenge: Reduce the environmental impact
of vehicles while maintaining consumer acceptability,
performance, utility and safety and also considering
cost and innovation.

A fourth-year over the road event, which will raise the
stakes for vehicle readiness, dependability and safety.

Vehicle platform To be Announced on April 24 in
Washington DC

Environmental Impact Goals
Reduce energy consumption
Reduce Well-to-Wheel greenhouse gas emissions
Reduce criteria tailpipe emissions
EcoCAR3 Technical Goals

Provide a platform to facilitate multidisciplinary, systems-level
engineering curriculum and instruction
Incorporate the use of math-based tools to improve engineering
education
Introduce and challenge students to weigh all the engineering
tradeoffs of their design, such as energy efficiency and consumer
features vs. performance and cost
Enable participants to develop and refine complex vehicle control
and safety systems by using industry testing/validation processes
and methodologies
Incorporate technical innovations in student-built vehicles to serve
as research test beds

Team Organization
EcoCAR 3 will have a strong multidisciplinary focus. Teams may design their own team structure and assign
their GRA roles anywhere, based on their own needs and leadership style

Lead Faculty Advisor
ABDEL MAYYAS
Engineering Manager
Sushil Kumar
Electrical Sub
Team Lead
Electrical Team
Controls Sub Team
Lead
Controls Team
Mechanical Sub
Team Lead
Mechanical Team
SM&S Sub Team
Lead
SM&S Team
Innovation Sub
Team Lead
Innovation Team
Communications Faculty
Advisor
Laurie Raltson
Communications
Manager
Ashley Yost
Communications
Team
Project Management
Faculty Advisor
Jane Humbel
Project Manager
Mark Neville
Project
management
Team
Team Roles
Lead faculty advisor:
Official university representative
Ensure that students test and operate the teams competition vehicle safely and according to all
team, university, and EcoCAR3 safety procedures while working on-campus at university facilities
as well as offsite at competition events


Chief Engineer/Engineering Manager:
Provides technical expertise and continuity throughout a large portion of the program
Overseeing all technical sub-teams in the areas of Mechanical, Electrical and Computer, Controls
Engineering, and Systems Modeling & Simulation and overseeing all technical aspects of the
program

Role of GRAs
Engineering GRA
To support key technology development and explore complex engineering challenges, such as
powertrain integration, controls/HIL, and/or energy storage system (ESS) integration
Must provide technical team leadership and maintain continuity within the engineering team.

ECE GRA
To support the teams Computer Science/Software Engineering/ECE activities, particularly in automotive
innovation.
Provide technical electrical leadership and maintain continuity within the engineering team.

Sub Team Leaders
Mechanical Sub-Team Leader
Will lead Mechanical Systems activities. Should possess good systems-level grasp of all Mechanical
activities.
Should have some leadership/management ability (or potential) to be able to delegate tasks and
lead a sub-team
Must have a mastery of CAD, Will likely spend significant time assisting in CAD training/mentoring of
other EcoCAR3 students
Good grasp of the fundamentals of structural as well as Finite element (FEA) analysis.
Good working knowledge of thermal system fundamentals
A big plus if they have prior experience working with or around vehicles (member of car club, car
enthusiast, mechanic in spare time, etc.)
Having some practical knowledge of vehicles coming is very valuable
Sub Team Leaders contd.
Electrical systems Sub-Team Leader
Responsible for leading the Electrical Systems activities
Valuable skills to have:
Competent with circuit design, simulation, and analysis
Programming experience
Experience designing and building low power electrical systems
Experience designing and building high power electrical systems
Values quality over quantity
Serves as a mentor for undergraduate student electrical team


Sub Team Leaders contd.
Controls Sub-Team Leader
Responsible for leading the Controls Systems activities
Valuable skills to have:
Mastery of MATLAB/Simulink
Programming experience or background
Fundamental understanding of physics and powertrain components
Fundamental understanding of closed-loop control systems and rule based control logic
Ability to work extremely closely with the SMS sub-team lead
Leads Design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (DFMEA), which will determine how robust
your vehicle is to failure
Serves as a mentor for undergraduate student controls team

Sub Team Leaders contd.
System Modeling & Simulation Sub-Team Leader
Responsible for leading the System Modeling & Simulation (SMS) activities
Valuable skills to have:
Mastery of MATLAB/Simulink
Programming experience or background
Fundamental understanding of physics and powertrain components
Fundamental understanding of closed-loop feedback systems
Ability to work extremely closely with the controls sub-team lead
Ability to visualize how a physical system can be represented through simulation
Serves as a mentor for undergraduate student controls team



Mentors
GM Mentors
GM will identify an experienced engineer to both guide the team through the EC3 VDP, be
the point contact at GM for technical help and be the team champion in working internally
with EC3 organizers
GM mentor with be an expert in a specific area of automotive engineering
GM mentor will be one of our best resources
He will know a lot about project management and specifically how to get our team to meet deadlines
associated with the VDP
He will know who in GM knows how to fix our technical problems and how to get us the help we
need to fix them
He will know how to work with competition organizers to keep our team out of trouble and the best
ways to approach organizers when our team does have an issue
GM mentor is the competitions best all around resource and lifeline. The more we work
with our GM Mentor, the easier it will be for our team to succeed and, should our team be
off track, for the competition organizers to get us the help we need


Mentors Contd.
Other Sponsor Mentors
Sponsors who provide in-kind software, hardware or engineering support will
assign mentors to the competition teams
Mentors are available to be a personal point of contact for each team to
answer questions and provide technical support



4 or 5 mentors for all teams

4 or 5 mentors for all teams

2 mentors for all teams

Subject Matter Experts (SME)

For each part GM provides to teams, GM will identify at least one engineer who is highly
knowledgeable about the part (SME)
SMEs may be determined for vehicle systems should teams have challenges working with those
systems
SMEs are competition resources
They are not assigned to any specific team
They are only to be contacted after approval from GM Tech Leads after team requests through the teams GM
Mentor
SMEs will provide direction remotely to teams to resolve issues, however, since they are experts in GMs
application of the specific part, there will likely be some back and forth with teams to resolve issues
SMEs participate in the generation of competition ICDs, teams are expected to have comprehended
and used the ICDs prior to requesting help from a SME

EcoCAR3 Vehicle Development Process
Similar to GM, EcoCAR3 will have a VDP that grows in complexity as time goes on
yearly competitions with specific vehicle development levels targeted
Y1: Designs finalized, component bench testing achieved
Y2: Vehicle build & integration, 50% level of functionality
Y3: Vehicle integration refinement, 65% level of functionality
Y4: Vehicle system optimization, 99% level of functionality
A good design for all the systems in the first year is extremely important
There will not be time to redesign the vehicle every year

Y1 Timeline/Events
Y1 Event Distribution
Y1 Timeline
Y1 Engineering Deliverables
In a Nutshell: 3 technical Papers and 2 Reports
Baseline vehicle modeling report
Feasibility Study Paper
Builds an understanding of reality/scope/feasibility of:
Packaging envelope
Component/vehicle performance
Fuel type
Energy consumption/efficiency
Faux waiver submission


Architecture selection paper
Facility Safety Binder
Software-in-the-Loop simulation
Competition donated component bench
testing
Final technical report
Competition

Workshops

Kick off workshop
MathWorks will sponsor the Y1 Kickoff Workshop on Sept. 18-21, 2014
GRAs, sub-team leads, project managers and comm. Managers are intended audience.
Training will be heavily focused on software (MathWorks, Intro to NX), Non-year-specific rules (NYSR)
Fall Workshop
Location and date TBD, but tentatively Oct 22-26, 2014
Audience is full team from here on out
Training will be heavily focused on software (Autonomie, donated component models, more NX), year 1 rules,
SM&S
Winter Workshop
Likely will be hosted by Freescale in Austin, TX date is TBD, but sometime in early January 2015
Training will be focused on achieving deliverables, with the first scored event

Innovation
AVTCs goal for the innovation activity is to:
Allow teams to showcase some of these new technologies on their EcoCAR vehicle
Reward teams for thinking outside the box and taking risk
Emphasize the technologies to the public
10% of total competition points will be assigned to innovation
Teams will select their own innovation topics, AVTC will NOT assign topics to teams
Must be related to automotive consumer acceptability, efficiency/fuel consumption, emissions or safety
Topics can be as short as a year or as long as 4 years
Cash prizes will be available for top 3

Innovation Timeline and Yearly
Deliverables
Swim lane Chart

Swim Lanes: A high level guide to stay on track each year
Swim lanes Explained: Mechanical
Summary: Design, integrate and validate efficient systems for the packaging, structural and thermal aspects of the powertrain and as well as
maintain the overall vehicle dynamics.
Core activities for EcoCAR3:
Packaging and mounting of powertrain and peripheral components
Heavy emphasis on Model Based Design (MBD) via CAD
Heavy emphasis on structural analysis, typically using as FEA a tool
Vehicle/subsystem integration
Follow MBD methodology and use CAM techniques to realize designs
Thermal systems (engines, batteries, motors, power electronics, etc.)
Involves high-level design as well as low-level implantation (i.e., coolant line routing)
Vehicle dynamics(changes in vehicle mass and distribution necessitate changes to springs, dampers, etc.)
Y1 Deliverable Design :
Package powertrain components for architecture selection
Drivetrain design (belts, chains, gears, connecting shafts, etc.)
Initial designs for component mounting structure
ESS design (structural, packaging and thermal systems)
Design, then build powertrain component bench test setup


Swim lanes Explained: Electrical
Summary: Build and analyze vehicle electrical systems, design & implement a non-powertrain
embedded control system
Non-powertrain embedded control system
Main goal: net vehicle energy consumption improvement
Design and implement an embedded controller to be integrated in addition to the supervisory propulsion
controller
PCB design using a reference design or evaluation board from FSL as a starting point
Energy analysis
Integration of system onto vehicle by Y3
Power distribution (HV & LV)
Harness design & routing
Fusing, wire sizing, shielding, grounding, external protection, connectors, pin selections, crimping, etc.
System simulation & validation with measured test data
HV bus ripple, parasitic loads, accessory loads, EMI, etc.

Tools/Skills needed for Electrical

Circuit simulation & routing software (OrCAD, pSPICE, or comparable freeware)
Software development tools (FSL CodeWarrior)
LV and HV parts sourcing (Newark, knowledge of ratings, design envelope)
Thermal protection of wires (internal and external)
LV and HV testing equipment (cat III multimeter, o-scope, CM & DM probes rated for at least
400V)

Y1 Deliverables- Electrical

Energy consumption improvement
Select and simulate an electronic based system that can enhance/improve net vehicle energy
consumption
Select and build functional proof of concept with FSL development kit or reference design
Power distribution
HV bus analysis (bus ripple simulation)
LV system simulation
Accessory loads
Parasitic loads
Design & build LV & HV harnesses for bench testing components and HIL

Swim lanes explained: Control
Summary: Develop reliable and robust vehicle powertrain control algorithms through the use of an
iterative development process and closed-loop testing
Component control
Interfacing
Modular control development
Simulation and bench testing
Vehicle control
Power split, hybrid drive modes
Systematic failure remediation
Simulation and in-vehicle testing
Closed loop testing
Model in the loop (MIL)
Software in the Loop (SIL)
Hardware in the Loop (HIL)

Y1 Deliverables:
Requirements, DFMEA
Closed loop vs open loop control
controller selection
component control & fault detection
basic vehicle control, energy analysis

Swim lanes explained: SM&S
Summary: Develop component and vehicle level mathematical and physical models that enable rapid
control development through simulator validation
Plant models
Component plant models
Full vehicle model
Closed loop testing
Software in the loop
Integrating controller code into vehicle model to validate algorithms
Hardware in the loop
Integrate controller code onto vehicle controller to validate interfacing and algorithms in real time (controls swim lane)
Integrate embedded controller system to validate system functionality (ECE swim lane)
Automated testing
Regression testing
Optimization
Test plan development & documentation

Y1 Deliverables: SM&S

Workflow management
Building models
Testing requirements
Fault insertion
MIL/SIL/HIL
MIL/SIL Demo

Business
Manager
Finances, Budgeting,
Tracking spending
Risk
Management
and HR
Proper Insurance,
Enforcing Rules,
Minimizing Risk,
Tracking Team
Members
Quality Control,
Quality Assurance,
and Change Control
Making sure product
quality is sufficient,
maintaining high
quality, tracking
changes on the vehicle
Stakeholder
Management and
Sponsorship search
Keeping in contact with
sponsors and searching
for new sponsors
Internal
Communications and
Cost Control
Management
Communicate
between teams,
Making Purchasing
decisions
Lead Project
Manager
Managing all project
management teams,
communicating
between faculty and
other team leads
Mark Neville