Design and development of motor controller for NV-8, Shell Eco marathon eco-car

• Main Author: Ahmad Ibrahim Mohammad Taha
• Other Authors: Lee Bu Sung
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Hardware::Integrated circuits; DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Electronic circuits
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/66616
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The project calls for the application of engineering knowledge to design a motor controller circuit to be used in Nanyang Venture VIII (NV8) for utilization in the Shell Eco-marathon Asia (SEMA) 2016. The reason to design a motor controller arises from the need to have a purpose-built motor controller as stated in Article 67, Chapter 1 of the SEMA rules. As it stands, the previous SEMA teams from NTU used a commercial off-the-shelf motor controller from Mitsuba to power their vehicles. This motor and motor controller kit costs approximately USD4500. Therefore, being able to manufacture our own motor controller would save the school a lot of money. The initial task of the project was to research online resources for circuit diagrams for a 3-phase Brushless DC (BLDC) electric motor controller. To help aid in the design of my project, Professor Ng Heong Wah had purchased a motor controller educational kit from Mitsuba. This educational kit was used in addition to online resources to form the basis of my knowledge of motor controllers. Once the working principle of the motor controller had been understood, work was started on designing a printed circuit board (PCB) to house the necessary electronic circuitry and components. The primary software used in this project will be KiCad, a free software suite for electronic design automation. The software is used to facilitate the design of circuit diagrams as well as its conversion to PCB designs which were subsequently sent for manufacture. Rigorous tests were done once the controller was installed in NV8 to ensure system stability and reliability. The report also describes problems encountered during the design process and modifications that had to be made after initial tests revealed flaws in the design of the motor controller. The NV8 team performed outstandingly during SEMA 2016. The team brought glory to NTU and Singapore when it was awarded a total of 4 awards and 3 trophies in various categories and was one of the only three teams from SEMA invited to take part in the first ever Driver’s World Championship in London where the best teams from around the world would compete. This was a true testament to the amount of effort, knowledge and engineering skill that was put into the car and proof of a successful project.