Charging through the circuits
With semester exam just a few days ahead a group of students were working on a car model. I thought it was part of their curriculum but, it was their passion that fueled them to balance between their studies and the project. After perfecting the combustion engine over 11 years, a team with close to 55 students from across different disciplines and academic years are looking ahead for the Formula electric race in Germany to prove their mettle.
Anirudha, Kanish and Tripal who are currently part of the project to develop an electric race car explained further, “In the combustion engine technology, in 2020, we won our first national competition in Formula Bharat in Coimbatore. Since then, we have fine tuned to retain the position and decided to proceed ahead to electric power trains.” The combustion engine was often dominated by the western countries as they had access to better equipments but the electric category creates a level playing field as the technology is new.
“Around late 2020, we started designing the car and by 2022 we started to manufacture it and the car was launched in November 2022. In January, the car was taken to Formula Bharat where we secured a podium in our first ever attempt in the electric category which no other Indian team has done so far,” said Anirudha proudly. The team has qualified for Formula Student Germany as the 11th best team in the world and the best team in India. The event is to be held later in August this year. For the selection, the team had to solve a set of engineering problems that ascertained the team’s capacity to build a race car.
The team is mainly working to improve the battery pack and also other features like the seat. This electric car has been designed to be better than the best combustion car that was produced in 2020. This car can hit a top speed of 150 kmph and 0 to 100 kmph in 4 seconds. “To give a perspective, the world’s fastest accelerating automotive of any type is a Formula student car built by a university in Germany. They achieve 0 to 100 kmph in 1.5 seconds. In line with that, when we go to Germany now, we will be competing directly against them,” pointed Kanish.
The main import component in electric vehicle is the electronic control unit and the battery pack. The team is working to develop an indigenous technology for both. “Professor Kamakoti developed India’s first microprocessor, Shakti. We are currently developing the electronic control unit with the Shakti microprocessor. We are also working on a custom battery management system with a deep learning based predictive modelling of the battery pack,” said Kanish.
The team had to face several obstacles before they could reach this stage. Funding was a problem especially when it came to one time investment in motor, controllers etc. The next major challenge was in building the car itself as the pandemic stuck. “Right now we are facing challenge to raise money for transporting the entire car to Germany and bringing it back. We estimate a total of around Rs 25 lakh for this,” said Anirudha. The team is sure to be on the podium in the static event and finish within the top ten in the dynamic event, considering this is their first ever electric racing outside the country. “This event will happen in the actual Formula 1 race track and companies like Mercedes, Red Bull will be present. This would be a very great exposure,” said Tripal.
This entire team is guided by multiple professors including, Satyanarayan Sheshadri from applied mechanics, Aravind Kumar Chandran who is helping with the battery pack, Karthik Atmanathan, a former Ashok Leyland executive from engineering design department, Krishna Vasudevan who is helping with the motor, motor control and designing and alumni like Ramakrishnan Srinivasan who is currently the head of Ford are mentoring along with the director V Kamakoti and others.
This young team manages this huge task along with their regular course work. “It takes time to adapt but we are proud of the work we do here. Even if we have a semester exam the next day, we still come to check what is happening with the car. Our passion drives us and we want to put something very proud on to the tracks,” said Tripal. This entire effort helps the team to gain a huge amount of practical knowledge and also real life experience of how to balance different areas like technology, design, business and management. Wishing the best to charge through the circuits in Germany!
