SUCCESS STORY

Photo credit: Thomas Meier

Driverless Car
The AMZ racing team from the ETH Zurich University decided to participate to the first «Formula Student
Driverless» competition within Formula Student Germany. They chose the lightweight and small Ellipse2-N
inertial navigation system for motion, equipment synchronization, and vehicle dynamic analysis.

AMZ racing is a student organization
based in Zürich which has been designingand building race cars since 2006.
In 2010, AMZ decided to participate
to the first formula student electriccompetition and take the challenge
to switch from combustion to electricrace cars. This year, and for the firsttime ever, Formula Student Germany
introduced a driverless category, whererace cars had to be adapted to drive
without any human intervention.
CLIENTAMZ racing (ETH Zurich University)
APPLICATION

Vehicle motion and trajectory
PRODUCT

Ellipse2-N Miniature InertialNavigation System with GNSSPROJECT

Motion, equipment
synchronization, and vehicle
dynamic analysis.

AMZ decided to take the challenge again,
and gathered a team and resources tomake it happen. They prepared “flüela”,
their car used for competition from2015, to be driverless. They needed newsensors as well as a whole new softwareand computing system.

IMU AND GPS, CORE PARTS OF
THE DRIVERLESS CAR
For the AMZ team, when designing adriverless vehicle, the IMU and the GPS
are a core part of the sensor suite. As
their car was already equipped with astandard IMU, they decided to upgrade
it. The new IMU has to be as accurate
as possible and it cannot fail since every
single part depends on how accurate andreliable is that information. “We neededa rugged high-end Inertial Navigation
System which would make the task ofsensor fusion easier, with a LiDAR forexample.” explains Miguel de la IglesiaValls, team member. Lightweight andsmall, SBG Ellipse2-N is the mostaccurate of its category, and the easier
to interface with, according to the AMZ« ’We were amazed by the quality of the gyroscopes. No one
in our team neither in our university could believe the littledrift we were experiencing »Miguel De la Iglesia Valls, Member of the AMZ Racing team

SUCCESS STORY - Driverless Car

The SBG Ellipse2-N offers a 0.1° Roll and Pitch, 0.5° GPS-basedHeading and a meter-level GNSS position (GPS + GLONASS
constellations in this case). “We were amazed by the qualityof the gyroscopes. No one in our team neither in our university
could believe the little drift we were experiencing” states Mr. De
la Iglesia Valls. The team was also amazed by the quality of theoutput position data. The Ellipse2-N integrates a GNSS receiverand fuses inertial data and position information in real-time fora continuous trajectory even in case of GNSS outage. Additionalalgorithms have also been developed for land applications
to improve even further the inertial sensor performance androbustness.
Robustness is one of those things that you only notice when
it is not there. According to the AMZ team, it was a toughtesting season with very hot days, extremely rainy days, a lotof vibrations, mounting, unmounting, plugging, unplugging.
The sensor never failed. This reliability
is also due to the extensive factory
calibration. Every SBG inertial sensor iscalibrated in dynamics and temperature;
the Ellipse2-N gyroscopes, accelerometersand magnetometers bias are corrected
and calibrated from -40° to 80°C for aconstant behavior in every condition.

For a bit more than half a year the AMZ racing team worked to
be able to complete the three disciplines set for the driverlesscompetition. These disciplines are acceleration, skidpad andtrackdrive. The first one measures the ability of the car toaccelerate fast, the second one to turn at steady state as fast as
possible, and the last one consist in a race in an unknown trackmarked with cones which combines everything together.
AMZ racing managed to be first in skidpad and trackdrive,and second in acceleration. The overall event includes static
disciplines in which the team also obtained good results: first inengineering design and cost, second in autonomous design andthird in business plan presentation. The overall result was a clear
victory in this first driverless competition.
AUTHORS
Miguel De la Iglesia Valls & Fabio Meier, AMZ Racing team
Hélène Leplomb, SBG Systems“We needed a rugged high-end
Inertial Navigation System”
Mr. De la Iglesia Valls

AMZ reached the podium in each of the eight disciplines, and won five of them.

ELLIPSE2-N KEY FEATURESABOUT AMZ RACING» Small & Lightweight (30 grams)

Among other achievements, AMZ has been ranked firstin the world formula student electric ranking in the years
2013, 2014, and 2015, and it looks like this year they may
take the first position again. In June 2016, AMZ obtained
the Guinness World Record for the fastest electric car toaccelerate from 0-100 Km/h.

» Embedded GNSS receiver» High Performance» IP68 Rugged Enclosure» CAN Connectivity

More Information:
http://driverless.amzracing.ch/en/frontpage

www.sbg-systems.com

SBG Systems EMEA (Headquarters)
Phone: +33 1 80 88 45 00
E-mail: sales@sbg-systems.com

SBG Systems North America
Phone: +1 (657) 845-1771
E-mail: sales.usa@sbg-systems.com

V1.0 September – All rights reserved © 2017 SBG Systems

ELLIPSE2-N, THE RUGGED MINIATURE INS/GNSSAMZ RACING SUCCESS

Photo credit: Christian Kreutzmann

team. Indeed, the Ellipse2-N comes with a CAN BUS interface
extensively documented, and a software to ease the integration.