The Future of Education

This presentation describes the development of an eBike as a students project in the Embedded Systems Lab and Software Engineering Lab in the Bachelor Programs Electronic Systems of the 6th semester.

Germany focuses on the development of technology for all topics related to Electro Mobility. The goal is to reach a number of 1 million electric vehicles on German streets in 2020. During the last four years many developments have been made. There is a big demand on engineers to work in those new fields. Since the beginning of the activities in 2009 it was also focused on new methods of teaching students in the field of Electro Mobility.

The research group Battery Management developed a training concept for a Project Lab in the Embedded Systems Lecture/Lab.

Students have to realize an eBike within a period of one semester. The students have to work in different project groups. All developments are based on a V-Modell. During Phase 1 the requirements on the product have to be defined. In Phase 2 the System is specified. Phase 3 focuses on the definition of the interfaces of the modules and the module specifications. During Phase 1 to Phase 3 not only the requirements and developments tasks are specified, the students also have to define how the developments have to be tested.

Phase 4 is the testing of the modules, Phase 5 the testing of the interfaces and Phase 6 the overall system testings. The students are forced to work with redmine as a project management tool, all software has to be checked in into a subversion control.

The technical approach is the development of all Electronic Control Units (ECUs) necessary for an electric vehicle / eBike. Components in the actual semester are a Battery Management System (BMS), a Motor Control Unit (MCU), a Vehicle Control Unit/ Bordcomputer ( VCU/BC), a Lighting Module (LM) a CAN Monitor/ CAN Bus Simulator a Charger and a Racing Circuit Timing Control unit. All topics are realized in small groups of 3 up to 5 students. All devices are based on Infineon automotive microcontrollers ( 16-Bit XC2287, XC886) or Cortex M4 based XMC4500. In addition a Raspberry Pi is implemented as a data logger inside the vehicle. As a display, an Android Smartphone is mounted to the eBike in order to work as a HMI. The communication between the Bordcomputer Module and the Android device is based on Bluetooth, therefore a PCB for a Bluetooth module has to be designed. This PCB can be connected directly to the Raspberry Pi oder in a downsized version without Pi directly to the Microcontroller of the BC. The programming of the Android Device is topic in the Software Engineering Lab of the same semester group.

The technical , as well as the didactic approaches behind this project will be presented on the conference.