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Project case study

NEO System

Integrated motor control, power distribution, and telemetry hardware designed for endurance EV applications.

Neo corner view
Neo
Dash Front
Neo Dashboard Side View
Neo Front
Neo Back
Dash Front
side

Project Overview

The NEO System is a custom, high-efficiency motor control and distributed telemetry architecture engineered specifically for endurance electric racing in the Greenpower IET Formula 24+ championship, built to operate under strict energy-efficiency and thermal constraints.

The Challenge

Greenpower IET Formula 24+ regulations enforce strict hardware limits: vehicles run on a standard 24V DC motor and a limited lead-acid battery pack.

  • Energy Budgeting & Pacing: Calculating the optimal target speed in real time so the vehicle finishes the endurance heat with maximum pace without depleting the battery pack early.
  • Thermal & Switching Efficiency: Minimizing $I^2R$ conduction and switching losses across the power stage under sustained 24V current loads.
  • Operational Simplicity: Delivering critical, actionable feedback to both the driver inside the cockpit and race engineers on the pit wall without complicated setup procedures.

The Architecture: Distributed 2-Board CAN System

  • Board 1 (Telemetry, Motor Control & Logging):
    • Houses the core motor driver stages, high-frequency current sensing, and voltage monitoring to feed the real-time energy pacing calculations.
    • Features an onboard high-speed MicroSD binary logger for post-session data analysis.
    • Integrates a LoRa wireless transceiver to stream continuous battery health and race pace metrics straight to the pit wall.
  • Board 2 (Display, User Inputs & Cockpit Interface):
    • Dedicated human-machine interface mounted in the cockpit for the driver.
    • Manages real-time display feedback.
    • Communicates seamlessly with the primary power node over the CAN bus, ensuring low latency and simple, reliable operation under race conditions.

Engineering Highlights

  • Dynamic Energy Pacing: High-frequency current tracking feeds continuous power consumption calculations, allowing the team to dial in the exact speed required to use every available joule by the final lap.
  • Turnkey Hardware Execution: Developed end-to-end—spanning architectural design, multi-layer PCB layout, embedded firmware, communication protocols, steering wheel mechanical design, enclosure design, physical packaging and integration.

Technical Specifications

  • Architecture: 2-Board Distributed Setup (Power/Telemetry Node + Display/Input Node)
  • PCB Stackup: 2-Layer Design Optimized for Cost Reduction & Manufacturability
  • Bus Interface: High-Speed Differential CAN
  • Telemetry: Long-Range (LoRa) Wireless Pit Stream & MicroSD Local Logging
  • Control: Pwm Motor Control and real-time high-frequency voltage/current sensing for endurance energy pacing
  • Target Application: Greenpower IET Formula 24+ EV Prototype