Bench Talk

NXP Cup EMEA Finalists Set New Performance Records

Fri, 28 Jun 2019 02:03:37 GMT

There is more than a possibility that the future autonomous cars we drive could be designed by some of the students involved in this year’s NXP Cup EMEA—as they have demonstrated ample talent and ingenuity over the course of the contest. After six qualification events spread out across the whole of the EMEA region—in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Lebanon, Morocco, and Romania—the 19 top teams (from a record 160 that originally enrolled) progressed to the final. This was once again held at the Fraunhofer Institute IIS, in Erlangen, Germany, on April 29^th and 30^th.

The teams were eager to show the latest updates they had made to their 1/18-scale autonomous cars, and tackle the four demanding track challenges set by the NXP Semiconductor project management team. The winners of the EMEA title will then get the opportunity to go to the NXP Connects event (in Santa Clara, California) in mid-June.

NXP Cup Racecar Design

I was certainly impressed with the new sensor additions made to the vehicles to help manage the obstacle avoidance and speed control challenges. Team GRKBrain (who hail from Kosovo) continued to fine-tune their algorithms created for the NXP Cup qualification heat in Munich, using their SlamTec A2 RPLIDAR interfaced with NXP’s standard-edition FRDM-KL25Z ARM^® Cortex^®-0+ microcontroller. Their performance in the obstacle avoidance section was unsurpassed. Team SlowFox from Masaryk University (in Brno, Czech Republic) opted for improving their computing power by upgrading to NXP’s FRDM-K66F. They continued with the tactic of relying on Mbed™-certified boards for the ease of programming. Sensor fusion that brought data together from a 3-axis FXAS21002 digital gyroscope plus the magnetometer and accelerometer data derived from a 6-axis FXOS8700CQ enabled better track handling. The team also used rotary encoders to ensure proper reading of the speed of the car’s two brushed motors. This translated into enhanced speed control. It also delivered improved electronic differential, which meant the vehicle was more adept at negotiating the curves of the track. Other cars, like the one developed by team Hall-9001 (from University of West Attica, in Greece), opted for using a Parallax 28041 optical sensor module to take care of the obstacle avoidance aspect, along with Infineon TLE4935L Hall sensors for speed control.

Figure 1: Members of Polish team KAW4Wheels. (Source: Mouser)

As the optional NXP Cup challenges of obstacle avoidance, the speed control zone and the figure-eight track require high-precision driving, team KAW4Wheels (from AGH University of Science and Technology, in Krakow, Poland) went with a custom-designed board. This featured an NXP MKV58F1M0VLQ24 ARM^® Cortex^®-M7 core clocking at 240MHz. Its Floating Point Unit (FPU) afforded better calculation precision and provided greater speed than the FRDM-KL25Z board that is part of the standard car kit. The Cortex^®-M7 core offers the processing power to deal with the signals received from two encoders (one being associated with each brushed motor). An array of four HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensors from OSEPP Electronics were to prove pivotal in steering past obstacles, as well as providing accurate operation for the speed control zone. The team took second place in the figure-eight challenge, and were third overall.

The big winners of the event, however, were the two teams representing Haute-Ecole Arc Ingénierie (from Switzerland) as they fought one another head-to-head for the title of 2019 EMEA champion. The cars from both teams (referred to as ArCar1 and ArCar2) had a very similar form, with each featuring a specially customized board. ArCar2 possesses a pair of Melexis MLX75306 CMOS cameras framed by four red LED emitters. These helped reduce the impact of any ambient light variation during the race. One camera was focused on the long-range vision of the track ahead (providing more details about the possible speed it could reach), while the other dealt with what was going on at close quarters (providing image data from the front of the car, to aid steering). The combination of the signals coming from these devices was then processed via an NXP Kinetis MK64FN1M0VLL12. For the speed-control sensing, a Honeywell SS443R sensor was employed. During the training sessions, a Redspine RS9110-N-11-22 Wi-Fi module enabled the retrieval of diagnostic data.

Figure 2: Matthey and Arfa from ArCar2. (Source: Mouser)

Unfortunately, Team ArCar2, which was comprised of Matthey Johan and Arfa Hakim, did not manage to score any points on the figure-eight challenge, as their car kept going off the track. However, they scored well in all the other disciplines—particularly in the speed race, where they clocked up a time of 23.1s—and this enabled them to take second place overall. They received a special prize from Mouser, made up of a multitude of electronic boards to assist them in preparing for next year’s competition.

Figure 3: ArCar2 in the speed trial. (Source: Mouser)

NXP Cup EMEA Winners

The EMEA winners were Romain Donzé and Alexandre Mäder with ArCar1. The vehicle was virtually the same as that of their counterparts—the only notable exception being that it used just two LEDs (rather than four) to illuminate the track during the race. It got around the speed trial course in a pacey 20.3s, as well as scoring maximum points on each of the supplementary challenges, to give the team the undisputed title for this year. When interviewed following the event, members from the two Swiss teams said that a key element for them had been learning how to use the features of each component on the car to their fullest, and to squeeze out everything they could to ensure the best possible performance.

Figure 4: EMEA winners Romain and Alexandre of ArCar1. (Source: Mouser)

Follow the NXP Cup Competition

You can watch the recordings of the NXP Cup EMEA finals on the Fraunhofer IIS YouTube channel, with both the speed race and the additional challenges covered. To keep posted on developments for the 2020 NXP Cup EMEA season, please follow Mouser Electronics on Twitter.

Autonomous Car Racing: Making it to the 2019 NXP Cup EMEA Finals

Wed, 17 Apr 2019 01:31:35 GMT

As the students of the 24 teams began to assemble at the Gymnasium Kirchheim bei München for the sixth qualification event of the NXP Cup, curiosity about each other’s 1/18 scale car models continued to build—with everyone comparing the modifications they made to their respective starter kits in order to master the challenges that lay ahead. The international flavor of the event was also very much evident, as teams arrived from Italy, Germany, the UK, North Africa, and Eastern Europe (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The participating teams in the NXP Cup. (Source: Author)

Luckily, on this particular day in late March, the weather was fairly cloudy; a great advantage as it meant that the compact vehicles would have fewer issues dealing with changing light conditions (something that proved to be problematic at the previous year’s event). This time there were no unexpected rays of sunshine creating awkward reflections or shadows on the black and white racetrack laid in the high school’s sports hall (Figure 2).

Figure 2: The numerous tracks that the vehicles from each team needed to negotiate in the NXP Cup. (Source: Author)

There was space for only four teams to qualify and join the total complement of 20 to compete on the 29^th and 30^th of April at the Fraunhofer IIS Institute in Erlangen, Germany—the venue for the final for the fifth year in a row. The incentive to succeed is very well defined, with NXP Semiconductors rewarding the team named EMEA Champion with a trip to Santa Clara, California to attend the company’s flagship NXP Connects event on the 12^th and 13^th of June.

The 2019 NXP Cup EMEA has seen over 150 student teams from high schools and universities across the region enroll in this unique competition for developing autonomous vehicles—with much of the focus placed on programming the small racecars for precision driving. This season NXP allowed participating students to expand the technologies deployed and respond to the requirements of the new optional trials—including the obstacle avoidance trial, the speed control zone, and the precision figure-eight track. Of course, the traditional and mandatory speed race is still an essential part of the challenge… always bringing a great deal of excitement.

NXP Cup Racecars

The base kit for each car included a pair of DC brush motors for propulsion, a digital servo motor for steering purposes, a power management interface and NXP’s FRDM-KL25Z board (at the heart of which is a Kinetis L ARM^® Cortex™-M0+ microcontroller) for the motor and guidance controls (Figure 3). The package also came with a simple CMOS 128-bit line scan camera to detect the signage and course markings on the black and white track. The onboard default 2500mAh, 7.2V Nickel-Cadmium (NiCd) battery offers the power capacity for vehicles to complete many laps. Mouser Electronics provided support, with the company acting as a key sponsor for supplying the kit, plus other useful technologies that students might want to add to their racecars—such as OSEPP’s ultrasonic sensors or higher quality CMOS cameras like the Pixy 2 units equipped with NXP’s LPC4330 microcontrollers. The teams relied on established programming and debugging platforms to prepare their vehicles for the different tasks encompassed within the competition—such as Mbed, Mathworks’ Matlab/Simulink or the MCUXpresso Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

Figure 3: The NXP Cup ‘pit lane’ showing all the competing racecars. (Source: Author)

Competition Highlights

Local team Hoibnbeschleuniger 2000, from the Munich University of Applied Sciences, decided to push the technology envelope by combining the image processing capabilities of NXP's ARM iMX6Q 1GB microprocessor with an OV5640 serial camera for machine vision, plus the efficiency of FRDM-KL25Z based motor control functions. A little anecdote here is that the team had to wait a few seconds for their car to boot up and load the Embedded Linux operating system before running it on the track. This differentiated it from the cars powered only via the standard MCU board, which were ready to run from the moment they were turned on. The team faced some issues getting the drivers to interface correctly with all the components in the car. A lack of development time meant they weren’t able to obtain the results they were hoping for. Nevertheless, they are fully prepared to continue working on it. They plan to move to a Yocto Project platform to have a better package manager and drivers for next season when they are looking to take another shot at the EMEA title.

One of the standout teams at the event came all the way from the Republic of Kosovo’s capital, Prishtina. Competing under the name BRKTeam, this collective consisted of students from the University of Prishtina who heard about the contest while visiting the NXP booth at the Electronica trade show last November and subsequently decided to get involved. They worked diligently on their car over the last few months, validating the technology requirements for each of the four principal challenges. The team predominantly concentrated on getting as much control as possible over every element of the vehicle by developing high-end algorithms for precision driving. One of the modifications implemented was to add an NXP H-Bridge to control the steering servo, rather than relying on the electronics of the servo itself. This provided them with extremely exact readings regarding the servo’s positioning and significantly improved vehicle handling. The most notable work was done in relation to the obstacle avoidance challenge, where the car had to steer clear of a 20cm x 20cm x 20cm white polystyrene cube while not exiting the track. To do so, they tried several sensor types, such as ultrasonic ones, but ended up going with a Slamtec A2 RPLIDAR interfaced with the Freedom board using the UART port. This provided accurate information about the vehicle’s surroundings. The LIDAR apparatus was designed to be removable, as it would not be needed for the other challenges and the speed race. In this way, they could reduce the risk of damage if an uncontrolled collision was to occur and make the vehicle lighter (and thereby quicker), using only the standard CMOS linescan camera for line detection work. For the EMEA finals, the team will focus on making the code more robust, especially the algorithm for the detection of the lines on the track.

The Results

The qualification round in Kirchheim was closely contested, with the BRKTeam taking top spot and DIT Deggendorf’s K-Team coming in second. Team Koala-Race from the University of Applied Sciences in Landshut, Germany made it to third place, followed by Team MIDI-Unimi from the Università degli Studi di Milano in Italy, who were in fourth position.

Follow the NXP Cup Competition

Do not forget to follow Mouser Electronics on social media (@MouserElecEU) to stay up-to-date with the next phase of the qualification process and the build up to the EMEA finals at the end of April.

Autonomous Car Racing: DIT Students Prepare for 2019 NXP Cup

Fri, 08 Mar 2019 02:50:37 GMT

The build-up to this year’s NXP Cup EMEA has begun, and the Deggendorf Institute of Technology (DIT) is ready to do battle. The academic establishment has participated in this highly regarded event since 2015. Founded by NXP Semiconductors, this competition gives teams of engineering students the opportunity to construct and program autonomous racecars and then compete with each other on the track. A record 158 teams from high schools and universities representing 16 different countries within the EMEA region signed up to participate in the 2019 NXP Cup EMEA competition. In late January 2019, the 16 DIT teams presented their projects for qualification into the finals on March 27.

The prospective DIT teams labored tirelessly throughout the last semester, preparing their autonomous vehicles to perform during the four grueling challenges. With the stakes so high, many were quite nervous and looked to use the last couple of hours available to carry out the fine-tuning of their hardware and implement any software changes. The programming was done via either the Mbed™ platform or the MCUXpresso Integrated Development Environment (IDE), the latter proving to be most popular with the teams.

As part of its ongoing work to encourage new generations of engineers across the continent through involvement in numerous competition-oriented ventures, Mouser Electronics served as a key sponsor of the NXP Cup EMEA for the last two seasons. In 2019, Mouser Electronics became the official supplier of the car kits used by each of the student teams.

The basis of these kits is the NXP Freedom FRDM-KL25Z Board for Kinetis L series microcontrollers with ARM Cortex-M0+ processor cores. For these cars, a simple Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) line scan camera supports the vision element.

The powertrain is comprised of a pair brushed electric motors, thereby giving students the chance to learn about electronic differential and motor-control techniques. As a default, every kit contains a 7.2V output 2500mAh Nickel-Metal Hydride (Ni-MH) battery. However, participants can choose their battery, as long as the battery has a maximum 7.4V, with less than 3000mAh based on rechargeable Nickel-Cadmium (NiCd), NiMH or Li-Ion technologies. Lthium Polymer (LiPo)-based batteries are not allowed.

The Code for Speed team, along with the likes of Byte Rider, JT_Drive and Overtaker relied on the Model C version of the kit (Figure 1), while other teams, such as Burning Wheels, made use of the new Almak kit (Figure 2). Both these kits share the same 16mm wheelbase and have almost identical chassis dimensions, but Almak has a one-piece body, while the Model C has a segmented body.

Figure 1: Model C-based vehicle used by the Code for Speed team, Byte Rider, JT_Drive, and Overtaker teams. (Source: Author)

Figure 2: Alamak-based vehicle used by the Burning Wheels team. (Source: Author)

Dealing with Project Pressures

With the pressure continuing to build, the students tested their cars on the three track layouts designed to assess obstacle avoidance and precision driving. After the students completed the three tracks, they moved on to a speed-control area where the car was required to dramatically decelerate in a given time period. The final test was a time trial on a racetrack in which the layout was not disclosed in advance. Some vehicles were able to reach up to speeds of 7kmph.

In some cases, such as the Burning Wheels team, students implemented a monitoring system for a real-time visual feed of what the CMOS camera ‘sees' with imaging data transferred back to an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display. From the monitoring system, the Burning Wheels team could derive valuable information in order to make adjustments to their driving algorithms. The team also decided that for the 3D-printed car chassis, it would be better to place the directing wheels at the back rather than the front. As team member Maximilian Seitz explained, it just gives the car a better turning radius and significantly improves accuracy.

With the event running from 08:00 until 14:00, the students had little time to rest or take a lunch break. Not only did their semester grades depend on the day's performance, but the day determined which teams would join a larger number of rival entrants from other universities in Munich. From there, the best performing teams will join those that qualified at NXP Cup events in the Czech Republic, France, Lebanon, Morocco, and Romania at the EMEA grand final, which will take place at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS (Fraunhofer IIS) in Erlangen, Germany on April 29-30.

The Path from Theory to Practice

The DIT teaching staff has been a major advocate of the NXP Cup—making this challenge an integral part of coursework in relation to embedded technology during the last few months. Here, students work in the lab and apply what they learned to the kits supplied by Mouser. Students are not only able to develop their practical electronics skills, but also gain valuable experience in keeping time schedules, task allocation, meeting deadlines, and working as part of a team. Competition supervisors dedicate themselves to maintaining student motivation, transferring engineering knowledge, and giving guidance when needed.

Building on the Future of Autonomous Driving

The DIT is proud of its NXP Cup legacy as well as its participation in other autonomous vehicle challenges. The institute’s wall of fame tells of considerable success over the last few years, with attendance at the EMEA finals in 2015 at the Politecnico di Torino in Italy, followed by reaching that stage again in 2018 when it was held at the Fraunhofer IIS. This time around, everyone is ready for the DIT team to become the EMEA champions and take the prize offered by NXP, which includes flying the winning team to the 2019 NXP Connect event in California. The NXP Connect event is an excellent opportunity for the students to discover more about the industry and make valuable contacts for the future.

In recognition of the impact that the NXP Cup competition had on students, the DIT inaugurated a new building. The DIT new building includes a lab designed to aid in the development of autonomous driving technology. The institute leverages the high demand for engineering talent in this sphere to increase the number of student recruits and prepare them for the future expectations of the rapidly evolving automotive industry.

So, we now move on to the next stage of the NXP Cup EMEA—the qualification event on March 27at Munich’s Gymnasium Kirchheim. The hope is that seven to nine of the DIT teams will be able to progress there. All eyes will then turn to the EMEA finals on April 29-30 at the Fraunhofer IIS.