Cure Mannheim – “Emma”

CURE Mannheim e.V., the Formula Student racing team of the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University Mannheim, was able to successfully realise its goal of developing and building an autonomous, electric racing car again this year. An important partner was Eurocircuits, who supported us with high-quality PCBs and stencils.

For our CM-22x racing car, which we have nicknamed Emma, we had to redevelop large parts of our electrical system due to supply bottlenecks and the limited availability of electrical components. This requires readily available and robust PCBs so that faults in the prototypes can be detected and rectified before commissioning. Here, the high-quality and reliable PCBs from Eurocircuits made our work much easier, as the rapid production and high quality of the PCBs and stencils allowed us to test and improve our prototypes early in the development of our electrical system. This meant that errors could be ruled out.

The most important parts of our electrical system are the safety systems that protect our drivers and other people working on the vehicle. There must be no mistakes here, which is why we are very grateful to have Eurocircuits as a partner who pays great attention to the quality of its products. Our safety system includes several sections. The Tractive System Active System (TSAS) detects if there is high voltage from our accumulator to the motors and inverters. The Shutdown Unit immediately disconnects the high voltage from the motors and inverters in the event of a fault or when one of the three emergency stop switches on the vehicle is activated. Furthermore, the Brake System Plausibility (BSD) Device enables the driver to disconnect the high voltage from our motors and inverters by simultaneously pressing the brake and the accelerator pedal without using his hands. Our Battery Management System also plays an important role in the safety of our vehicle by monitoring the individual battery cells in our high-voltage accumulator and thus preventing short circuits, overheating and overcharging.

We are particularly proud of our Telemetry Control Unit (TCU). Last season, we developed, manufactured and commissioned this unit ourselves for the first time. For the development and improvement of our future racing cars (live) telemetry data is crucial. It is precisely this collection of data, its storage, processing and forwarding that our TCU takes care of.

With Emma, we participated in a total of four competitions. We were able to compete with other teams throughout Europe, in Switzerland, in Austria at the Red Bull Ring, in Hungary at the Hungaroring and in Germany at the Hockenheimring. We were able to pass the technical inspections at all events and thus built a safe vehicle that complied with the rules. This also gave us the opportunity to participate in the dynamic disciplines, where Emma could compete against other electric vehicles. We were able to achieve very satisfactory results in the 21/22 season and will be able to continue these successes in the current season by further developing the vehicle concept.

We would like to thank Eurocircuits for the good cooperation and will continue to rely on Eurocircuits as a reliable partner for the production of our PCBs and stencils in the future.