doubleSlash visits the Global Formula Racing Team at DHBW Ravensburg
The IT service provider doubleSlash visited the Global Formula Racing Team of the DHBW Ravensburg in its developer base and workshop on the campus in Friedrichshafen. The DHBW Global Formula Racing Team, GFR for short, is an international cooperation between the racing team of the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) in Germany and the Beaver Racing Team of Oregon State University (OSU) in the USA. The Formula Student competition, an international engineering design competition, is an exclusive opportunity for students to develop and improve their engineering, project management and teamwork skills. Together, they develop competitive race cars that compete against other universities and colleges. Their pride and joy is on impressive display in the foyer of the Friedrichshafen campus: The Driverless Car 2019, which achieved outstanding results in this year's Student Formula design competition and took part in the races in Barcelona and Hockenheim. It quickly becomes clear that young people are working here with great passion and are enthusiastically involved in the project. This drive requires support from various practical partners in the form of sponsors. This type of support for young talent is also very important to doubleSlash
Working passionately on the future of autonomous driving—with active support
The team members of the Global Form Racing Team are currently studying at the DHBW Friedrichshafen. During the lecture period, the students meet up at the weekend to continue working on the racing car. The shifts often extend into the night - the hobby becomes a passion. While in the USA they mainly work on the simulation, the developers in Friedrichshafen are mainly concerned with the perception of the environment with the help of cameras and sensors, the so-called perception of the car.
"Despite the division of tasks, there are always team calls to exchange ideas or to discuss the camera, for example. We develop the car and the software completely independently," says Marko Bausch, who is this year's team leader of the driverless car. Every semester, the Global Formula Racing Team develops the car from scratch, which it then uses successfully in competitions.
Former team members regularly join the team to provide support. "The car's components are produced by external companies with the help of sponsorship money," says Marko Bausch. doubleSlash has also made an important contribution to the self-driving racing car in the form of a financial donation. Among other things, this enabled the team to procure the sensors and camera that are essential for autonomous driving. The team explained the function of the camera and the sensors, which are located next to the headrest. They are necessary for the GPS or the emergency braking system, for example. The camera recognizes the route and surroundings, but the distance to obstacles is not yet visible. To achieve a 3D effect, the lidar sensor shoots lasers at cones which are intended to represent obstacles. These reflect back. The strength of the reflection can be traced back to the color of the cones. This makes it possible to measure distances to stationary or moving objects and provide three-dimensional images of the objects. This can help to prevent collisions
doubleSlash is also active in the field of autonomous driving—from consulting to end-to-end integration. The IT service provider has a great deal of experience in the automotive sector in particular and it is a matter close to its heart to promote the fields of "Autonomous—Connected—Electric—Shared" also in the promotion of young talent. Markus Beller, Senior IT Consultant at doubleSlash, shares the enthusiasm of the racing team: "The exciting thing is that software development is suddenly becoming the absolute core area in the currently changing automotive industry. In the past, the focus was primarily on engineering and software development was a secondary area. Today, software development is becoming increasingly important both on-board in the control units and backend (in the cloud). In the future topics of connected cars, shared mobility, autonomous driving and e-mobility, software development is the common thread that runs through all areas. doubleSlash mainly deals with the development of backend systems in the cloud. The entire sensor system generates terabytes of data that can be stored, classified and reused for training purposes. In addition, doubleSlash is active in the requirements management of V2X projects.
"What you like to do, you do better"
"The fact that this subject area has now also become interesting for students such as the DHBW Global Formula Racing Team naturally makes us particularly happy. We are proud to be able to support the team, because we recognize ourselves and our values in the racing team: team success and great team cohesion, sustainable knowledge transfer of the respective cohorts, enthusiasm for the work, open communication with each other and the combination of technology and benefits to drive forward sustainable technologies," says Sonja Egle, HR Officer at doubleSlash.
The DHBW students use shared motivation as a driver for success. doubleSlash can therefore fully identify with the team with its credo "What you like to do, you do better".
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