Cornell Racing FSAE Project Team

FSAE Racing at Cornell is Cornell University’s Formula SAE team and one of FSAE’s top contenders. From our humble origins as Rookie of the Year in 1987, FSAE Racing at Cornell has grown to become one of the most formidable teams in the world. With Nine World Championship title_s at FSAE Michigan and awards from the Society of Automotive Engineers, Road & Track magazine, Goodyear, Hoosier, and more, Cornell Racing is a strong presence in Formula SAE racing.

Rooted in collaboration, our design process involves powertrain, chassis, and business sub-teams coming together to conceptualize a high-performance, openwheel formula-style electric racecar. Using advanced CAD software, we meticulously 3D model every component, ensuring optimal integration and efficiency. We then perform rigorous ANSYS, CFD, and OptimumLap simulations, to validate and iterate on our designs. Throughout the design process, we leverage our experienced alumni by getting feedback through 1:1s and a team-wide yearly alumni design review (ADR). Furthermore, strategic industry partners are critical to well-advised design choices, as we also hold design reviews with our engineering sponsors.

As for PCBs that our team designs, we have 7 custom designed PCBs that power our car's low-voltage system, ensures the safety of the high-voltage system, and controls the car. The PCBs on 2024's car (ARG24) we design are as follows:

Electronics control unit (ECU) - Holds the microcontroller that supplies all logic for the car's state machine, torque requests to the motor, and data logging.

Power Distribution Unit (PDU) - Provides fused power to the entire low-voltage system of the car. Controls the Tractive System Active Light (TSAL) along with our low-voltage battery or our DC-DC converter.

Shutdown Board (SB) - Handles all non-driver-resettable faults on the car. If there is a BMS, IMD, or BSPD fault, this board latches the fault until it is reset by a non-driver technician. Part of the shutdown circuit of the car.

Discharge Board (DIS) - Discharges the high-voltage system when the car is ordered to be shut down.

Precharge Board (PRE) - Safely energizes the high-voltage system when turning the car on. Also powers the accumulator indicator light (AIL), which allows people trackside to quickly know if the outside of the battery pack is energized.

DC-DC Converter - Board that houses our XP Power QHL600300S12 that steps down our high voltage power to be used for high current applications.

Module PCB (MOD) - The PCB inside our battery pack that monitors the cell temperatures and voltages to be sent to our BMS to ensure the battery pack is in a safe operating state.