CREATE lab at Carnegie-Mellon University Robotics Institute
Timothy Hitchcock
Hello ChargeCar Team and eCars Now! Global list,
A dialog is underway between our two groups…please follow along, participate and expand...
Players so far…
TIM: Timothy Hitchcock <hitchc...@gmail.com>
Chief Magical Connector, eCars Now! California
ALEX: Alex Styler <ast...@gmail.com>
PhD student, CMU
GREGG: Gregg Podnar <g...@cs.cmu.edu>
Program Manager, Robotics Institute
Co-Investigator, ChargeCar, CREATE Lab
JIRI: Jiri Räsänen <jiri.r...@gmail.com>
NB: Jiri is officially unavailable for eCars Now!, to work on his thesis, so please exclude him from further traffic, instead post to:
eCars Now! global list <ecars-no...@googlegroups.com>,
=========
The ChargeCar project is sponsored by the CREATE lab, part of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
"ChargeCar is dedicated to open, community-centered teamwork for making electric vehicles practical and affordable enough to revolutionize urban commuting. Our preliminary results have convinced us that an objective approach to low-cost battery electric cars can succeed using today's technologies and know-how when augmented with artificial intelligence control and supercapacitors. We employ community-gathered real-world commuting data, with formal scientific analysis to optimize vehicle power system design. Our models and designs are openly provided to the automotive industry as well as to the public."
"The ChargeCar Prize programming contest will be officially launching on July 1st. The contest is to design a management algorithm that controls how the super-capacitor is used in the compound energy-storage system. The contest serves two purposes, reaching out to a new community for involvement and improving the effectiveness of the system by harnessing their intuition and creativity."
Sähköautot - Nyt! (translated as "eCars Now!") began in Finland three years ago, an all-volunteer group doing open source development to convert popular gasoline cars to battery-electric drive.
|
"eCars - Now! is an open community devoted to develop high quality electric car conversions available for EVeryone. We want modern electric cars on the road. As quickly as we can, as affordable as we can, and as widely available as we can." |
=========
TIM: Hello CMU… I expect assurance that the creative work will remain "open" and in the public domain, freely available, and not captured for private gain. How do you propose to do that? Will you be using GNU licensing? How are you planning to "openly provide to...the public" the algorithms and code from each participant? How will the automotive industry protect public access to the parts of the product that came from this project?
=========
ALEX: All very good questions! As we currently stand, at the end of each
judging cycle, all code will be freely released on our website. The
leaderboard will link directly to the submission's code, and there
will be a Source link on the chargecar.org/invent page that will go
into a directory browse of the source code, organized by author. We
haven't decided on a license yet, but it would likely be GNU GPL v2,
Eclipse Public License, or the New BSD License.
We aren't associated with the automotive industry at all. If someone
in the automotive industry wanted to use and modify one of the leading
algorithm submissions, that is just fine, anything that might improve
the efficiency of vehicles is in the spirit of the project. The
correct license will protect the rights of the author.
As a university project, we have no means or desires of private gain.
Much of our funding for our project is contingent on engaging the
community and providing training to local mechanics to create
conversions themselves, using our freely available designs.
On the engineering side of our project, we are creating a recipe for
electric vehicle conversions, starting in a honda civic. We have
local mechanics lined up waiting for the result and the training we
will provide. I'm not sure of our plans for widescale public release,
but I can speak to the engineers and see if they are willing to write
up a document/website/etc.. that explains the conversion and the
custom parts (mounting brackets), maybe for those we could post 3D
models online (like a SolidWorks file). For the local release, we
will train local mechanics, as well as source many of the parts that
are cheaper to buy in bulk like the batteries, brackets, and custom
mating plates. These will all be given at-cost, with no profit for
our project or the university.
I hope I've given you a solid answer. We are reviewing the available,
public licenses, and when we've made our decision, I can let you know.
It's difficult as we want contestants taking other submissions and
taking ideas, code lines, and blending them all together, with heavy
modifications, and we need a license that allows that without becoming
intractable.
==========
TIM: <snip> I've been involved with a project similar to yours that began in Finland three years ago, called Sähköautot - Nyt! (translated as "eCars Now!"). This is an all-volunteer group doing open source development to convert popular gasoline cars to battery-electric drive. Last November at the Helsinki Motor Show they unveiled their e-Corolla to the public and media, along with an e-Smart and an electric motorcycle, with very positive results.
Links to the project pages follow:
http://ecars-now.wikidot.com/ecars:electric-toyota-corolla
http://ecars-now.wikidot.com/ecars:electric-toyota-corolla:c-guide
A short youtube video shows the configuration chosen for the combined motor-drive-battery module that drops into the existing motor mounts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZxgcUYr6Y0
<snip> One aspect of [eCars Now!] collaborative work that may be of interest to your project is the eGUI open software driver's interface for SOC, etc., available without charge. Perhaps there are CMU students who could contribute to its ongoing development?
I'd like to monitor your project and look for appropriate areas of mutual cooperation and exchange with my Finnish colleagues and other local EV groups here in the SF Bay area. This area is *rich* in talent and enthusiasm for EVs...as I discovered yesterday attending for the first time the local SV chapter of the EAA (actually the birthplace of EAA, CalCars, Plug-in America, et al).
I will forward your challenge and invitation to the global list. Best of luck in solving this important problem in a transparent, crowd-sourced approach.
==========
GREGG: Thank you for your information and the encouragement of our work.
Since its inception, our goal for ChargeCar has been to have all the
knowledge developed made freely available. This includes open sourcing
the algorithms for predictive compound energy management as you have
seen from the contest; our Community Conversions recipes being developed
to convert used ICE cars into electric commuters; and all of our data
on battery testing, vehicle performance, and so on.
Some of this information is best shared through research publications,
some via the website, and some by working together with interested parties.
Unfortunately, just making the information available does not always lead
to others making commercial products for the public. Sometimes it takes
the people dedicated to seeing the research actually fielded to form a
spin-off company. Do you see this as different than any group making use
of the publicly-available information?
The websites you've sent are very interesting. Thank you. The concept of
battery sharing is interesting. Is the battery sharing co-operative
<akkuosuuskunta.wikidot.com> site available in English? As the eCars Now!
California Ambassador, do you see any possibility of establishing such a
system here in the U.S?
Do you have a price for the motor-drive-battery module for the Corolla,
and is it commercially available?
Yes, we would be very interested in collaborative opportunities with your
Finnish colleagues. Would you like to suggest possible introductions?
==========
JIRI: Just some short answers. (I'm "mostly" out of EV stuff for the time being.. have to finish my thesis at the university..! )
eCorolla-proto1 is ready. eCorolla-proto2 is under construction and eCorolla-proto3 is being prepared for construction. The proto3 should be ready enough for multiplication.
(The official authority here *demands* EMC test for EV's later than year 2000. Yet another authority who's job would be to implement the EMC test just says it won't do it. The ministry that guards the both, blantly says they don't have time for this... I hope that some day we will have bureaus with better external functioning... But we'll sort this out, the elections are coming and Finland is a small country. )
The price.. so many prices have been said already for the set, from 10 000 euros to 20 000 euros. It should be a bit cheaper in the US, since there are more US components (especially Azures) there than EU components.
We'll have a double licence (like MySQL) workshop in the coming months with Helsinki University Law school, we'll see what will come out of that. The OS licencing is not yet formed. Software has been written in GPL-2, as far as I know.
For the time being: I know who would be the best person to answer questions on eCorolla (Mr. Eki Leinonen), but he is so busy he doesn't much answer email...
I suggest that Timothy, You summarize & forward some of these emails to the eCars - Now! global mailing list, so the ones here who have both technical knowledge and time to develop conversation, so that they can participate.
And EVeryony interested, wellcome to the eCars - Now! global mailing list! :-)
==========
TIM: Dear Gregg, Alex and eCars Now! Global List,
I agree that Eki is too busy to keep up with this thread…he is a hero, in my book, a man of action. So too is Jiri busy with his studies, so I won't post directly to him either. Time for more of us to contribute…
The clever assembly of motor-drive-batteries used in the e-Corolla was designed and fabricated in Finland by volunteer effort and is unique. The CAD drawings are probably available to share, if we can find the right person to ask. [???]
The components are off the shelf - Azure Dynamics motor and controller, ThunderSky LiFePO4 cells, Lithium Balance BMS. All specifications can be found at:
http://ecars-now.wikidot.com/ecars:electric-toyota-corolla
I know that the engine compartment of the Toyota Corolla was studied extensively and the frame created to be reproduced and shared openly.
Examples of US prices for Azure-Dynamic components can be found here:
http://www.electroauto.com/catalog/price-pts.shtml
As for the battery sharing cooperative, the link akkuosuuskunta.wikidot.com can be accessed via Google Translate [Finnish >> English] along with its daughter pages. Paste the URL into the site: http://translate.google.com/#fi|en|
My vision to implement battery sharing in the USA would exploit the tax-exempt status of rural electric cooperatives. This model of generation and distribution of electricity for the common benefit of owner-members is well established here. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_cooperative
Electricity can be purchased in bulk from the grid and/or generated locally using green sources. Distribution has traditionally been through poles and wires, but could be in the form of charged battery modules available at distribution points around a community, or delivered to residence and business sites. The REC would own and manage the batteries throughout their life cycle. This provides incentives to (a) purchase batteries in bulk, (b) invest in battery production, (c) standardize battery modules and vehicle design to allow battery pack swaps, and (d) maximize battery life, to include shifting batteries from mobile to fixed use as they lose capacity, such as solar and wind farms.
As for introductions to Finnish colleagues…they all read posts to the global list. Their team comprises a wide variety of talent and ability, and the stars are always too busy. Hennka "Henry" Palonen has been leading software development for the eGUI and is networked with the programmer community. My counterpart "Chief Connector" has been Jaakko Jaskari; he knows instinctively who to introduce to who...
[ "Henry Palonen" <henry....@gmail.com>, ]
[ "Jaakko Jaskari" <jas...@kuuskajaskari.com>, ]
I hope this answers your questions above. I'm delighted to have this level of exchange with another open source project. Thank you for responding!
Timo