University Racing Eindhoven – Results of URE17

University Racing Eindhoven (URE) is a student team from Eindhoven University of Technology. The team was founded in 2003, meaning that the team exists for 20 years already! With a group of about 75 students, consisting of 7 full timers and 68 part timers we participate in the Formula Student competition. Which is the biggest design competition for students all over the world. The goal of the team is to educate the engineers of the future and build a fully electric and autonomous race vehicle.

The goal for the URE17 was to become a reliable car on which weight reduction and packaging would also be a focus point. We managed to fit all of the components into our monocoque and we were able to drive out all the events with a driver during the competition season!

The URE17 in a nutshell

Last year there were quite a few issues regarding our new powertrain, which consisted of new motors and a new motor controller. We managed to tackle these issues this year, resulting in us getting a lot of performance compared to our previous cars. We also changed up the aerodynamic package a bit, of which the front wing is the main change. A new addition this year is also the DC/DC converter which we produced. Meaning that we can power parts of our low voltage system with our high voltage accumulator, instead of only using a low voltage battery.

This year, with the help of Eurocircuits, we were able to test a lot of PCBs before producing a final version, due to the rapid prototyping. It only takes a few days for a PCB to arrive. Meaning that we can test all its functionalities relatively quick. We have also used a few Isolated Metal Substrate (IMS) PCBs instead if FR-4, mainly due to the useful aspect of an IMS PCB that it can easily dissipate heat of electrical components. For example, our fuse box consisting of high-side switches, which generated a lot of heat. By using an IMS PCB, which gives us much better heat transfer and a lot more thermal mass to work with. It made sure that our circuitry stays nice and cool.

A competitive season

As the URE17 has a convertible concept like our previous cars, it can participate in both Electric- as well as Driverless competitions. This year we competed in 3 of the major Formula Student competitions. Namely Formula Student Netherlands (FSN), Formula Student Germany (FSG), and Formula Student Spain (FSEast). During FSN we placed 5th, during FSEast we placed 13th and during FSG we placed 13th as well. Unfortunately we were disqualified during the endurance at FSN and FSG due to minor safety critical errors. Which prevented us from coming in 3th and 5th respectively, meaning that the performance looks quite promising!

What’s next?

This year we managed to build a reliable and quick car. Meaning that we have a nice testing platform for the future. The new car will also include a lot of the same features as our last car in order to get in a lot of testing time to tune the car. However, we’ll also be implementing our new self-developed motor controller. University Racing Eindhoven will be looking forward to this challenge and making sure to show up with an even more competitive car next season!