Sapienza Fast Charge is the electric Formula Student team of Sapienza University of Rome and is a true motorsport company demo, where everything is done by students: from marketing, design of the car, communication to driving the vehicle in the race. In Sapienza Fast Charge an electric single-seater race car is designed and built, and the team competes in international competitions. Throughout the year, the team's activities span a wide range of fields: events to showcase the vehicle at major trade shows and conferences set the Press and Communications offices in motion, which work throughout the year (while continuing to take exams).

The next season's car is designed in parallel, and the Business and Project Management departments put their energies into contacting sponsors, planning the work, and building a business plan for virtual marketing of the vehicle (including participation in static events). The team was established in 2013 and, for the 2024 season, consists of 141 students from various Faculties and Graduate Courses at Sapienza University of Rome.

The goal for 2024 is to launch, after 2 years of development, our fully self-driving electric car. The single-seater car is already available in almost all major components, and a large group of computer science students are engaged in the implementation of track recognition and control of the car's dynamics. Such a traveling laboratory is the ideal platform for comprehensive all-around training of future engineers in autonomous driving and artificial intelligence techniques for the realization of full self-driving vehicles.

Here is a YouTube link (with English subs) that gives you a glimpse of our reality, led by our Faculty Advisor and Professor Leone Martellucci:

Here are the PCBs in our project

BSPD (×3)

Brake System Plausibility Device: is also a safety board because it handles the signals from the brake and accelerator by acting on the shutdown circuit, which is the machine's safety circuit and according to the specifications given in the regulations.

Fuse box

Board that is responsible for directing power to the various electrical and electronic compartments of the machine, and possibly protecting them in case of malfunctions or short circuits. At the same time, we have added functions necessary to control organs required by the regulations, for example, the buzzer (an instrument that acoustically signals that the machine is ready to move) and the inverter.

Insulator (×3)

This board's role is to latch the errors that come from IMD and BMS, which are the main components that ensure the safety of the driver and the components of the car. These errors have to be latched until they are physically restored by a person.

Power Supply Board Cockpit (×3) and Power Supply Board Discharge (×3)

We have here two very similar boards: one smaller, the other larger. Both boards have the function of ensuring the most stable and correct power supply possible with the special functions soft start (allows to give power gradually each time ensuring less spikes), maximum current limitation, reverse polarity protection.

Dash (×3)

Made to control the machine dashboard that gives us information regarding the machine's movement speed and all other parameters, such as the temperature of the battery pack or errors such as a temperature higher than the machine's normal operating temperatures.

Safe board (×6)

It is a board specially made to turn signals from other boards into compliance with the regulation so that the safety of the machine can be more strictly controlled.

TSAL (×3)

Board that deals with the management of the machine's lights according to the operation dictated by the regulations. It visually ensures that the machine can be operated or not (for safety reasons).

LED control (×3)

LEDs give a quick check of machine functionality. Board that handles the indicator lights on the cockpit of the machine under control of the insulator and BSPD, TSAL, thus going to indicate malfunctions of the IMD (Insulation Monitoring Device), BMS (Battery Monitoring System) or brake or throttle faults. 

This following boards are used in our driverless car.

ESP32 Write + assi (×2)

This ESP32-based board manages the data coming from the Autonomous System Central Unit, forwards them on the CANBUS, outputs the active state of the vehicle such as “DRIVING” or “EMERGENCY” and controls various actuators and motors, such as the stepper motor for the steering. 

ESP32 Read (×2)

This ESP32-based board manages the data coming from the CANBUS and LIDAR, forwards them to the Autonomous System Control UNIT, thus creating two separate and reliable single-way communication between vehicle’s different sectors and Autonomous System Control Unit. 

ESP32 Watchdog (×2)

This ESP32-based board ensures a constant control on the main Vehicle Control Unit and alerts the ASCU whether the communication between those two units is still active.

At last, we would thank PCBWay.com for the extremely useful and exciting opportunity for our project.