ENGS 89/90 Reports

Year of Graduation

2024

Project Advisor

Hélène Seroussi

Instructor

Jason Stauth

Document Type

Report

Publication Date

2024

Abstract

The Dartmouth Formula Racing (DFR) team wanted to improve their driving skills and ability to debug their electric race car by capturing data from their multitude of sensors. The car uses the Controller Area Network (CAN) protocol to allow any CAN node to broadcast data on the bus. This project aimed to log, decode, and visualize the time series and message data from all sensors on the car’s CAN network with a plug-and-play, fully encapsulated device. Previous attempts at logging data failed due to a lack of open-source resources and software related to decoding CAN messages. For this reason, we have open-sourced the project’s code, design files, and documentation for the microcontroller, printed circuit board, user interface, and waterproof enclosure. The logging device was built using a microcontroller and custom PCB. The device sits inside a water resistant enclosure with a panel-mounted Deutsch connector to provide power and connect to the CAN network. There are panel-mounted status LEDs and user input to interact with the device. The device records CAN data to a micro SD card and streams data in real-time via micro-USB when connected to a computer. A custom user interface takes in a log from the micro SD card or data stream along with a DBC file with conversion rules to decode the data. It can then be visualized or exported to a CSV . This project allows DFR to reliably capture and decode their data, facilitating a more data-driven approach to their multi-year engineering project.

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