Duke Electric Vehicles

Electrical Team President & Administrative Co-President

The Challenge

The Shell Eco-Marathon challenges student teams to design ultra-energy-efficient vehicles where every joule matters.

Our Objective

Competing in the Urban-Concept Battery-Electric category, DEV aims to design a top-tier energy efficient vehicle with all the peripherals of a standard car (ex. lights, horn, windshield wipers).

Project Overview

Duke Electric Vehicles aka DEV is designing a vehicle for the 2025-2026 in the...

Competition: Shell Eco Marathon

Category: Urban Concept

Energy Class: Battery Electric

Location: Indianapolis Speedway

Course: For a valid run, vehicles have to go four laps (9.523 miles) within 35 minutes.

Electrical President (2025-2026) Responsibilities

System Architecture

I design the architecture for the electrical system of the vehicle. This includes the placement of different functions in the system, the connections between microcontrollers, and input and output goals.

Technical Management

Although I am not the lead for any specific board/function, I meet with each sub-team lead to go over component selection, PCB Design, and possible design improvements. In addition, I access timelines of development and assist to fill gaps in output.

Electronic Differential Controller Lead (2024-2025)

Before stepping up to president, I was the lead designer of the Electronic Differential Controller. This system was there to ensure that our two back-wheel motors varied in speed to account for different turning radii during turns. This control system had the following workflow:

Acquire the angle of the steering wheel by feeding an inertia measurement unit (IMU) gyroscope and accelerometer data into a Kalman. Convert this measurement into toe angle.
Measure each wheel speed with hall sensor rotary encoders inside each wheel.
Calculate the turning radius of the car and the desired wheel speed for that turning radius.
Adjust PWM duty cycles for motors to increase or decreased wheel speed.