VUB Racing: Pioneering Sustainable Innovation in Formula Student

VUB Racing is the Formula Student team from Brussels. We uniquely focus on building most parts of our car out of recyclable materials be it flax fibers, recyclable plastics, and various other eco-friendly materials. Our team consists of young, ambitious students who are still in the midst of their studies.

In the summer of 2024, we went to the Formula Student Netherlands competition where we achieved our highest FSN score yet and made significant gains in the Business Plan and Engineering Design events. This year we will be competing in FS UK and FS Italy, which we are very excited about since the team hasn’t competed in these competitions yet in the past.

Our partnership with Eurocircuits is essential for the reliability and performance of our car’s electronic architecture. They help us by providing high-quality PCBs and assembly services. We are able to have a short cycle time of iterations thanks to the quick delivery. We are happy to showcase and explain two PCBs manufactured by Eurocircuits that will be integrated into this year’s car; TSAL Red Logic & TSAL Green Logic.

TSAL Red Logic:

The Tractive System Active Light (TSAL), which is in the main hoop of the car, is used to indicate the state of the vehicle to those around the car. When a voltage higher than 50V is present, the TSAL should blink red. The purpose of the TSAL Logic Red PCB is to deliver a signal to the TSAL when high voltage is present. It is designed to support a voltage up to 300V. The low voltage side and the high voltage side are separated with a distance of 4mm, to respect the rules of Formula Student. Furthermore, an isolated DC-to-DC converter is used to generate low voltages that can interact with the galvanically isolated tractive system. The high voltage detection is made possible by using a simple voltage divider, a comparator uses this voltage as an input and compares it to a reference voltage. Using an optocoupler, the high-voltage side signal gets converted to a low-voltage side signal.

TSAL Logic Green PCB:

The TSAL Logic Green PCB is also used to deliver a signal to the TSAL, indicating that the car is in a safe state to operate on. Three safety checks are required to ensure the safe state of the car. The first is that both Accumulator Isolation Relays (AIRs), making the connection with the battery, must be open. Secondly, no voltage higher than 50V may be present. And lastly, the precharge relay coming from the precharge circuit must also be open. When all three requirements are met, the TSAL will light its green LEDs.  All checks end up converted to a LVS signal and go through a simple OR gate: if one of the incoming signals is HIGH, the TSAL won’t get lit green.

 We are looking forward to continuing our partnership with Eurocircuits and producing even better PCBs in the future!

For more information please visit the VUB Racing website.