This project is about making a motor dynomometer test bench. This has been a long term goal of the team because it gives us a powerful platform to test our car's powertrain with hardware in the loop (HIL). The DynoDAQ board is able to control both the speed of the dyno and the torque output of the test article, meaning we can run detailed, repeatable test cycles. It has already proven useful in power output maximization and PID tuning. Planned tests include: Driving style efficiency testing, and powertrain validation testing.

Here's the point of it all, why I built the board in the first place. Using data collected from the DAQ, I tuned the motor controller, giving the car more torque for longer. This, with a proposed regearing, increases power in the operating reigon by 30%. Schoolhouse Rock was right, knowledge is power.

This board will operate near two motorcontrollers, which are known to create lots of electrial switching noise, so precautions were taken to prevent EMI. The board is a 4 layer stackup, with a ground plane completely isolating the analog inputs from the digital side of the board. All wires used are shielded, with the shields grounded to the metal enclosure, which is connected directly to the ground plane of the motor drive. All inputs are filtered and all digital chips are decoupled to keep the power rails quiet. To filter the input signal as close to the chip as possible, 0201 package components were used to fit inbetween the chip's legs.