In the coming summer term, the Institute of Automotive Technology (FTM) will once again provide the opportunity to answer interesting open questions in the field of future mobility to motivated students. The focus of this program is on practical work up to and including prototyping. All participants are encouraged to submit a student thesis (Bachelor/Semester/Master Thesis) documenting their individual contribution.
Electric Tractor Development for Africa
Today we know how to build good electric vehicles. But have you ever seen an electric tractor?
You might have seen one, but non is in series. We want to develop a purpose design for an electric tractor for Africa!
Africa is home to 55 million small hold farmers with minor amounts of mechanization. In our global drive project, we aim to develop an electric tractor suiting these small hold farmers to make their business easier and more profitable. As small hold farmers tend to be far from supply chains for quality fuel, an electric tractor is a solution to exploit solar energy far from strong infrastructure.
Topic 1: Remote Sensing
In order to find out what small hold farmers need, we need to find out where they are, how much land they grow, how much they produce and how far they transport their goods. Remote sensing technologies are a perfect means to derive these parameters from a macro perspective. Your task is to use state of the art remote sensing techniques as image detection, pattern recognition and transfer learning to find out how many people can be reached with an electric tractor and what they would use it for.
Topic 2: Requirement analysis and dimensioning
Farmers across the world have different expectations of their machines due to different tasks and farm structures. However, the parameters are the same for all but do differ in their value. Your task is to find out which requirements of their business define the technical parameters of the machine. An outcome might be a tool which matches the technical specifications for an electric tractor with a certain target group.
Topic 3: Design of Concept and Digital Twin
An electric tractor opens the possibility for new design freedom. However, also the complexity of all interfaces needs to be managed. You task is to integrate the derived requirements of technical parameters in a cost-efficient concept of an electric tractor. Therefore, you will investigate the relationships between the sizing for instance of gearbox and engine. You will finalize the concept with one chosen case study. Your outcome might be a digital twin of the tractor paired with a CAD concept.
Application
If you are interested in participating in this project, please send the completed application form and a current TUMonline grade report to globaldrive.ftm@ed.tum.de until February 28th, 2023.