Autonomous driving racing car

The FSUPV Team, the team of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) in Spain, has presented its new prototype, the FSUPV-10, with which it will compete this summer in Formula Student, the most important international university competition in the field of engineering high performance, created in 1980 in the United States and which arrived in Europe in 1998.

Developed by 50 students from various UPV degrees, the FSUPV Team car incorporates an autonomous driving system with vision sensors, a processing unit and actuators that exert force on the brake, accelerator, clutch and steering wheel, and that allow the prototype to roll without a self-guided pilot.

But, in addition to the novelty of driverless driving, the 2023 prototype incorporates other highly relevant improvements, such as an advanced real-time telemetry system, a variable aerodynamics system that improves vehicle behavior, and numerous redesigns that have allowed to lighten the car. All these improvements have allowed us to see faster lap times on the track than its predecessor, the FSUPV-09, last year’s prototype.

Regarding the innovative manufacturing process of the FSUPV-10, carried out in collaboration with the Institute of Design for Automated Manufacturing and Production of the UPV, it is worth noting the use of molds printed on a large 3D printer.

“Each edition,” says Joaquín Real, co-director of the FSUPV Team, “in each prototype, we set ourselves new challenges, with the aim of continuing to improve, and to do so we apply the new knowledge that we are acquiring in the UPV classrooms. and in the team’s own workshops. In addition, for this improvement, the support of all our sponsors is also essential, which this year there are already more than ninety”.

The FSUPV-10. (Photo: FSUPV Team / UPV)

First stop, next July: Austria

After the 3 podiums achieved in the summer of last year, the FSUPV Team faces the season with numerous new challenges, such as trying to climb to the top of the podium in the three competitions in which it will participate in the coming months, focusing, especially, in the most prestigious competition at a European level, FS Germany, where this will also be the last year of the combustion modality.

In any case, the first appointment will be in Spielberg (Austria), at the Red Bull Ring circuit, from July 22 to 27. In this test, the UPV team will only compete in the modality with a pilot. “It is a competition in which, despite not having a prototype specifically designed for it, we will fight for the first position,” explains Lorena Borrás, Head of Image and Communication for the FSUPV Team and coordinator of the team’s Electronics division.

In August, Spain, Hungary and Germany

From August 15 to 22, the FSUPV Team will compete in Formula Student Germany, the reference competition in Europe for its history and competitiveness. It will do so at the legendary Hockenheim circuit, where after achieving first place in 2022 in the skidpad DV, this year the team seeks to compete in the autonomous driving category against the best teams in the world. Marc Ferrara, co-director of the team, affirms in this sense that successfully completing the autonomous tests “would place the team in a very good position compared to others in its category that lack a functional autonomous system, demonstrating uniqueness and the work behind the prototype. ”.

Previously, the FSUPV-10 will compete in the Hungaroring, from August 1 to 5 and, later, in Montmeló (Barcelona), from August 7 to August 13, “an event -Formula Student Spain- that poses something different to Germany “, explains José González, co-director of the team, “since the autonomous and pilot competitions will go separately. Our bet is to compete in both with the same car… and be victorious”, he points out.

Born in 2014, the FSUPV Team was the first team to join the UPV Spontaneous Generation, the support platform for students from the Valencian Polytechnic so that they carry out extracurricular activities that can facilitate their future job placement and, at the same time, serve an example to the rest of the university community.

Currently, UPV Spontaneous Generation has 71 teams in which more than 2,000 people from the three UPV campuses participate. (Source: UPV)