Abstract for group Shifter

With the help of two Mechanical Engineering Senior Design students, we
are building an automatic shifting system for Columbia's SAE
racecar. Based on data taken from engine sensors, the main idea is to
have a heads up display show the driver the current transmission gear
and to make an appropriate recommendation on when to shift the gear up
or down.. Shifting the gear in our system would involve simply pushing
a button. Main parts to our project include analog circuitry to
massage engine sensor signals, a microcontroller for buffered engine
sensor signal processing, circuits to implement control decisions a
display utilizing LEDs, and a debugging port for real-time debugging
and configuration. The analog circuits will be comprised primarily of
op-amp circuits to provide buffering and to scale the voltages to
suitable levels. A PIC microcontroller will be used to process the
data and to provide control signals for the actuator as well as the
display. Software development for the microcontroller will be in
assembly. Circuitry to drive the actuator will use power MOSFETs and
off the shelf chips specialized to drive power MOSFETs from the
microcontroller. To this point, the interface between the electrical
and mechanical components has been well defined, a suitable actuator
has been purchased and tested,the existing engine sensors have been
studied and our general control implementation approach has been
approved by Professor Girard. We are working now to finalize our parts
list and the actual schematics for our control circuitry and control
board.