Hardware Improvements

In 2022 we were the team that made it to the finals with the least amount of upgrades to the car hardware. We simply added some distance sensors and slightly tuned the wheel camber.

Distance sensors

Three sensors were added:

• Front sensor: helps with avoiding frontal collision, would also be crucial for tailing maneuver

  • drawbacks: we only used one sensor in the center of the car’s front, so it only helps detect objects that are right in front of the car.

• Side sensor: helps with overcoming (sensing whether there is an object to the car’s right side before finalizing an overcoming maneuver)

  • We ended up not using this sensor because when overcoming a static car it is enough to measure whether we’ve already gone enough so that we can go back to the right lane. Even when overcoming a moving car it would probably not be necessary because the car would maintain its speed while being overtaken. But its usage provides redundancy and more reliance in case of anomalies.

• Back sensor:

  • We ended up not using this sensor, but it would be useful for parallel parking (we used perpendicular parking).

Adding these sensors involved modifying the embedded platform code.

Wheel Camber

We adjusted the rear wheel camber so that the car could have a better steering radius.