CANary
Course Instructor
Daniel Cliburn
Abstract
Solar powered racing cars require constant monitoring and supervision to maintain consistent operation. Without live data, issues such as charge depletion and battery overheating can lead to race ending faults. More specifically, with live data the car speed can be slowed preemptively to maintain acceptable charge and temperature throughout the race. The solar battery is a key component of the solar car and as such, it must be monitored to ensure the safety of it and the driver. Given that the supporting crew is not in the car with the driver, this creates a need for a remote solution. This project reads diagnostic data from the car’s internal Controller Area Network (CAN) and transmits it to a remote ground station over Radio Frequency (RF), where it is displayed in a real-time, comprehensive dashboard. Through this system, the solar battery can now be monitored in the midst of a race, enabling the crew to catch and mitigate faults while also informing long term design improvements.
CANary
Solar powered racing cars require constant monitoring and supervision to maintain consistent operation. Without live data, issues such as charge depletion and battery overheating can lead to race ending faults. More specifically, with live data the car speed can be slowed preemptively to maintain acceptable charge and temperature throughout the race. The solar battery is a key component of the solar car and as such, it must be monitored to ensure the safety of it and the driver. Given that the supporting crew is not in the car with the driver, this creates a need for a remote solution. This project reads diagnostic data from the car’s internal Controller Area Network (CAN) and transmits it to a remote ground station over Radio Frequency (RF), where it is displayed in a real-time, comprehensive dashboard. Through this system, the solar battery can now be monitored in the midst of a race, enabling the crew to catch and mitigate faults while also informing long term design improvements.
