Project
# | Title | Team Members | TA | Documents | Sponsor |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
11 | Modules for Safe Power Distribution in an Electric Vehicle Honorable Mention |
Amalia Dungey Richa Vijayvergiya Siye Cen |
Christopher Horn | design_document1.pdf final_paper1.pdf other1.pdf presentation1.pptx proposal1.pdf |
Illini Solar Car |
Background: The solar electric cars built by the Illini Solar Car team compete across continents and require stability as well as efficiency. The Power Distribution System (PDS) on these electric cars controls the connections to the high voltage (~100V) bus and includes the low voltage (12V) bus, but does not control the low voltage connections at present. Motivation/Purpose: The idea is to significantly increase efficiency of the car by being able to switch each connection on the +12V bus on or off individually in response to signals from the driver or other PCBs on the car. The main work for this project is to 1) design a new 12V bus board with a sufficient number of connectors that are the appropriate size 2) implement the switching and communication hardware on the 12V busboard, and 3) establish the communication between the PDS control board and 12V bus board. Baseline Goals: - Attach FETs to at least half of the connections on the 12V bus board. - PDS control can switch each of the FETs independently of each other. - Additional I2C connection on PDS control board to allow communication with 12V bus board - Current-monitoring module on each of the connections from the 12V bus to determine which connected boards consume more power than others - PDS control board firmware switches 12V outputs in response to CAN bus messages. - PDS control board firmware sends 12V output status (current, on or off) to CAN bus. Reach goals: - PDS control board firmware stability tested, running over 4 hours with no switching abnormalities - Update firmware on the PDS control PCB, so that it can request and receive the ADC differential voltage information from the precharge PCB over I2C instead of using a timer to assume precharge is completed - Precise voltage monitoring on 12V bus, reported to PDS control board and to CAN bus |