1 LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES UNIVERSITY RACING TEAM 22 January 2014 Our work with National Instruments By Kieran Southward, David Pettit and Dr Christian Matthews At Silverstone in July 2013, members of the LJMU racing team found time to talk to applications engineers at National Instruments (NI) about their future plans for developing an in-house engine control system for their Honda CBR600RR race engines. They discussed the possibility of using LJMU Racing’s NI CompactRIO platform for this application, and after some follow-up meetings NI agreed to support the project by donating a set of C-Series modules, specially developed by DRIVVEN for IC engine control. The CompactRIO, with its combination of a high speed FPGA and real-time operating system, provides the ideal platform for performing high-speed engine synchronous control. The DRIVVEN modules, along with specially developed software mean that the team can focus upon developing the control system, rather than having to build the critical subsystems for crank synchronous timing from scratch. The hardware modules which have been provided by NI are designed to operate with standard automotive sensors and actuators. This means that driving actuators such as fuel injectors and spark coils is straightforward, requiring little or no additional power stage hardware. There is also support for essential sensors such as the variable reluctance (VR) pickups used to monitor crank and cam position, the universal exhaust gas oxygen (UEGO) sensor used to monitor air/fuel ratio and many other important analogue and digital sensors required to build a robust engine control strategy. The student leading the project, Kieran Southward is taking the opportunity to combine his work in LJMU racing with his 3 rd year engineering project. He said “This is an extremely exciting project to be involved with. Having the type of support NI has given us has been outstanding, without the hardware and the technical support they have given us we wouldn’t have been able to even attempt such a project. With the use of the DRIVVEN modules we have been able to develop our engine control unit at a much faster rate than we had anticipated. We are thrilled that we are able to take on such a challenging project, and have the chance to work with some of National Instruments engineers.” The academic supervisor of the project, Dr Christian Matthews said “The support that NI have provided is extremely generous. It has enabled the team to begin development of their own IC engine control system and to realise results very quickly indeed. It offers our students with the opportunity to work with engineers from a global engineering company on a demanding technical problem with a practical application; projects don’t get much better than that.”
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Our work with National Instruments !By Kieran Southward, David Pettit and Dr Christian Matthews
At Silverstone in July 2013, members of the LJMU racing team found time to talk to appl icat ions engineers at Nat ional Instruments (NI) about their future plans for developing an in-house engine control system for their Honda CBR600RR race engines. They discussed the possibility of using LJMU Racing’s NI CompactRIO platform for this application, and after some follow-up meetings NI agreed to support the project by donating a set of C-Series modules, specially developed by DRIVVEN for IC engine control.
The CompactRIO, with its combination of a high speed FPGA and real-time operating system, provides the ideal platform for p e r f o r m i n g h i g h - s p e e d e n g i n e synchronous control. The DRIVVEN modules, along with specially developed software mean that the team can focus upon developing the control system, rather than having to build the critical subsystems
for crank synchronous timing from scratch. The hardware modules which have been provided by NI are designed to operate with standard automotive sensors and actuators. This means that driving actuators such as fuel injectors and spark coils is straightforward, requiring little or no additional power stage hardware. There is also support for essential sensors such as the variable reluctance (VR) pickups used to monitor crank and cam position, the universal exhaust gas oxygen (UEGO) sensor used to monitor air/fuel ratio and many other important analogue and digital sensors required to build a robust engine control strategy.
The student leading the project, Kieran Southward is taking the opportunity to combine his work in LJMU racing with his 3rd year engineering project. He said “This is an extremely exciting project to be involved with. Having the type of support NI
has given us has been outstanding, without the hardware and the technical support they have given us we wouldn’t have been able to even attempt such a project. With the use of the DRIVVEN modules we have been able to develop our engine control unit at a much faster rate than we had anticipated. We are thrilled that we are able to take on such a challenging project, and have the chance to work with some of National Instruments engineers.”
The academic supervisor of the project, Dr Christian Matthews said “The support that NI have provided is extremely generous. It has enabled the team to begin development of their own IC engine control system and to realise results very quickly indeed. It offers our students with the opportunity to work with engineers from a global engineering company on a demanding technical problem with a practical application; projects don’t get much better than that.”