FORMULA ELECTRIC TEAM BUILDS FIRST BELGIAN SELF-DRIVING E-CAR

STUDENT IN FOCUS

Seventeen years after the first Belgian solar car, Belgium’s first autonomous electric racing car was presented. With this, Formula Electric Belgium is not on its trial run. The team of engineering students from KU Leuven and bachelors from Thomas More Hogeschool has been building electric cars for thirteen years. With the self-driving Super Nova, however, they are racing into a new era.

On 28 July 2022, press and public were introduced to the newest star of the enterprising student team. “Three men worked on it day and night for months, but actually it is the merit of each of the 48 team members,” says team leader Remko Schippers. “The Super Nova is the result of many years of experimenting, optimising and, of course, racing. As a result, we currently have two state-of-the-art models: the Titan with pilot and the Super Nova without.”

At the base of the sophisticated self-driving car is a simple go-cart costing barely 20 euros. “We equipped it with smart sensors and cameras, which quickly raised the price tag to 25,000 euros. We then installed the best-suited technology in one of our existing race cars that was completely converted,” Remko says.

Expertise

The Super Nova is a 250 kg mini-bolide, 1.5 m wide and 2 m long. Externally, you don’t see too many differences compared to the Titan, except that its autonomous counterpart is equipped with intelligent sensors, a powerful computer and a special LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) camera that virtually maps its surroundings. What started modestly with a 20-euro go-cart is now a racing car worth over half a million euros.

Such an amount is impossible for a student team to cough up on its own. “That’s why the support of 120 companies was indispensable,” Remko continues. “Some of them also helped us considerably with expertise. Among them Ford, Siemens, aviation company Sonaco, chip developer Melexis and 3D-Systems”.

Speed records will not be broken by the Super Nova for now. “We are currently reaching 30km per hour,” confirms Remko. “Not exactly impressive for a racing car, but at the development stage,we are not concerned with speed. We do think that in about two years’ time, 150km/h will be achievable. Besides, speed is not the only factor that counts in the international competitions we participate in with our cars.”

Self-built

The Formula Student Competition is the world’s largest engineering tournament for self-built racing cars. “Until recently, there were two categories of competitions for combustion engine cars and electric-powered cars respectively,” Remko explains. “To this has been added a third competition intended for autonomous driving ones.”

As mentioned, the Formula Competition is not a race against the clock where whoever finishes first is the victor. The competition consists of several sub-trials - called ‘events’ - grouped into static and dynamic judging events. Any team can participate in the static events. The jury evaluates the team’s car design, cost price and business plan. The dynamic events are only open to cars that have passed the technical tests. In this category, the car’s acceleration, endurance and handling, among other things, are put to the test. How fast a lap is driven on the track determines the results in the autocross. Points can be earned in each of the ‘events’. The team with the highest final score is declared the winner. In the past thirteen years, the Belgian Formula Team has participated in competitions in the Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, Great Britain, Italy, Austria and the Czech Republic.

Prototype

In astronomy, supernovas are the natural end of massive stars. Can we infer from the name of the autonomous racing car that the Titan was the last piloted electric car and the team will only build autonomous ones from now on? According to Remko, that is not an option for the time being. “The Super Nova is actually a prototype. There is still quite a bit of work to do to get the car ready for competition. It is up to our successors to make choices”.

Yves Persoons

www.formulaelectric.be