F1TENTH cars are model race cars with 1/10 scale. This also gives the name of the series. Some parts of the build are standardized and/or restricted to provide some degree of a fair playing field. However, hardware parts are also subject to engineering and improvements, where allowed.
The cars first used at TU Wien were mainly based on the standardized bill of materials by the F1TENTH community. Main parts are the Hokuyo UST-10LX Lidar for environmental perception, and the Nvidia Jetson TX2 embedded computing platform. The chassis is based on a Traxxas model Fiesta.
The acquisition of the first generation of cars for the underlying course on Autonomous Racing Cars was made possible through the BMWFW CPS/IoT-Ecosystem infrastructure award.
Throughout the lecture and also during race preparations, students came up with improvements on the car hardware. The embedded computing platform was upgraded to the Nvidia Jetson NX on this car generation. Furthermore the chassis was changed to a Traxxas model Slash with modified springs for optimized suspension. Several different tyre models are now in use to best match the respective floor surface. For various ongoing research, there are additional sensors placed on the car.
Our team is constantly working on improving not only the software of the car, but also its hardware. Improvements of software and racing algorithms will make it necessary to also upgrade the computing platform. Stay tuned for more information on our new race car generation!
