Insightful Information for Student Race Engineers

dSPACE supports Formula Student Driverless with RTMaps multisensor software

Aside from the classic racing vehicles driven by human pilots, autonomous vehicles are becoming increasingly relevant for Formula Student races. Numerous teams are already dedicating their efforts to Formula Student Driverless (FSD) or are planning to use a driverless racing vehicle. With these autonomous vehicles, they have to race ten laps around a traffic-cone-delimited race track as fast as possible. The sensors integrated in the vehicle must independently detect the track. To ensure this, the racing vehicles of FSD are equipped with cameras, radar, lidar, and satellite navigation. The challenge consists in processing the data of the extensive sensor range as quickly and simply as possible and in merging it for the pathfinding routines that the teams develop themselves.

dSPACE offers academic race teams substantial support for this task by providing them with RTMaps multisensor software. With the software, race engineers can comfortably and efficiently capture all data of the many environment sensors that are integrated in their vehicles. A group of 18 race engineers from nine different teams visited dSPACE in Paderborn on October 11 to learn about how exactly this powerful software can help them optimize their racing vehicle. An employee from the Application/Engineering department gave them great insights into how RTMaps works and provided informative examples of how to capture, process, and merge data. The software topics were complemented by information about other use options in combination with the various dSPACE hardware products.