Young Researchers Took Part in an Automotive Innovation Camp

On May 21, 2021, the Race4Scale project participants and stakeholders got together to share and discuss trends and innovations in the automotive industry. The Camp was held within the SPbTransportFest, the second international festival of transport innovations.

The camp teams presented their projects on self-driving cars, transport and road safety, man-vehicle interface, innovative vehicles, and infrastructure. But the camp was not about the presentations only, each of the teams set practical tasks for other participants. Results and solutions were discussed after the brainstorming sessions and presented to the expert jury.

Young researchers and engineers from LETI and Kudrovo school took an active part in the event.

Union “Avtoprom NW” presented a business case “From the first Russian cars and motor vehicles to the present day (to the 125th anniversary of the first Russian commercial vehicle).” They asked participants to prepare an abstract on the topic for the young audience. This abstract is going to be published in the virtual museum of auto- and moto engineering “Auto-Evolution,” which was established by the “Avtoprom NW” Children’s Engineering Center.

Business cases “Automotive expertise of road safety” and “Intelligent transport system on the ‘Scandinavia’ road section” were presented by the teams from St. Petersburg University of architecture and civil engineering.

The first case dealt with the problem analysis of a car accident. The participants were asked to analyze a typical car collision situation taking into account the input information on the car speed, model, driver behavior, and possible options for accident prevention.

The second case presented advantages of the intelligent transport system, which integrates modern information and telematic technologies and is designed for introducing the most effective scenarios for transport management. GASU students asked the Camp participants to give proposals for the introduction of innovative technologies, determine the composition and arrangement of the ITS peripheral systems for the modernized Scandinavia highway.

Young experts from the MGBOT LLC company presented two business cases for the solution. This company, founded by students of Ryazan Polytechnic University, develops software systems for solving practical issues in road mobility systems.

For the brain exercise, they offered two business cases “Maintenance optimization and vehicle fleet management platform using IoT” and an educational set “Movement of an unmanned vehicle using the example of the ‘Dynamics M1.'”

The first case dealt with the tasks and functions of a future profession ‘driverless vehicle fleet manager.’ This manager should be able to use the information platform that provides information to the driver, owner, and car manufacturer information on the technical condition of each vehicle in the fleet in a convenient and accessible form, issues recommendations for planned repairs, and recommends new parts or repair services from contractors.

The task set to young innovators included:

Design the platform user interface;
Specify sensors from which it is necessary to collect information about the car
Sketch an algorithm for transmitting and outputting data using the Internet of Things.
Before giving assignment for the second case, the MGBOT LLC representatives made an overview of the current trends in self-driving car innovations. After that, they asked the teams to create educational materials for schoolchildren and students on the study and development of the work of an unmanned vehicle based on the set of mobile robotics “Dynamics” developed by the company.

Another team from SPbGASU presented a business case “Mobile application “Driver’s assistant.” Nowadays all cars are equipped with driver assistance systems, which give a lot of data about the car operation, driver condition, and behavior, etc. The problem-solving task at the innovation camp was to optimize the existing systems to make them both driver-friendly and usable for further improvement of the road and vehicle safety systems.

The presentation & brainstorming sessions of the Innovation camp were completed by the Award sessions, where the best solutions were announced, and participants got their awards.