Electric Solenoid Gear Shifting System 1
Electric Solenoid Gear Shifting System 1
Electric Solenoid Gear Shifting System 1
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3 authors:
Prasanth Santhakumar
Jayem automotive Pvt ltd
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Abstract—The racing line is the path that is followed by used for controlling the solenoid valves. The components of
the driver in order to minimize the race times. And to this system are bulky and heavy.
achieve the perfect racing line, the driver has to
concentrate on important factors like braking point, turn
in point and clipping point. The driver also has to III. PROBLEM STATEMENT
maintain the sufficient effort on the steering wheel to
overcome the cornering forces. Removing the hand from
the steering wheel to shift the gears using the mechanical Though the above-discussed system relieve the driver from
lever shifter in a racing situation is going to reduce the taking his/her hands off the steering wheel, it has the
amount of control the driver has on the race car. following drawbacks.
Keywords—Gear Shifter, Steering, Solenoid, Arduino, The system occupies a large amount of cabin space because of
Pneumatic, Solid State Relay, Paddle Shifter. its relatively huge components like the pressurized gas tank
which makes it difficult to service and maintain. Also, the
presence of a pressurized gas tank on the car poses a huge risk.
Any impact or damage to the pressurized tank can lead to
I. INTRODUCTION
disaster. Further, the gas tank has to be pressurized
periodically and it only supports a fixed number of shifts for a
The FSAE car is powered by a single cylinder, four stroke given tank capacity. In the event of using a compressor, the
engine with a displacement of 510.4 cubic centimeters. The power requirement is also high. The shift delay in the system
transmission is a six-speed gear box. The previous version of is typically between 200 milliseconds – 250 milliseconds.
the FSAE car used mechanical lever mounted inside the
cockpit for shifting the gears. Reducing the shift delays and also reducing the overall weight
of the shifting system will significantly improve the
The driver had to take his hands off the steering wheel to shift performance of the vehicle.
the gears which reduced the performance of the driver as
stated earlier. Hence a steering mounted button shifter will
allow the driver to shift through the gears without taking his IV. PROPOSED SYSTEM
hands off the steering wheel, thereby having the maximum
maneuverability of the car. The actuation of the gear lever can
be achieved through different systems. A. Electric Solenoid Gear Shifters
II. PNEUMATIC GEAR SHIFTING The Electric Solenoid Gear Shifter consists of electric
SYSTEM solenoids for actuation of the gear lever which is controlled by
a microcontroller. The solenoids are controlled by push
Electro-Pneumatic shifter is one system which utilizes buttons mounted on the steering wheel.
electrically operated solenoid valves connected to a pneumatic
actuator. The pneumatic actuator is connected to the gear lever This system occupies very less rear cabin space. The use of
which provides the force for gear shifting. This force is this system has a comparatively low-risk factor. The shift
delay is reduced by 90 percent.
provided by a pressurized gas tank or an onboard compressor.
Physical buttons are installed on the steering wheel which is
V. WORKING PRINCIPLE
VI. COMPONENTS
From To Force
(Gear Number) (Gear Number) (Kgf)
N 1 10
1 2 15
2 3 10
3 4 11
4 5 10
5 6 11
The maximum force required for shifting is found. The D. Push Button Switches
selected solenoid provides a maximum force of 166.6 N. The
solenoid works at 12V. Each solenoid weighs 1.12 Kg. The Momentary SPST (Single Pole Single Throw) Normally Open
solenoid was wired as per the troubleshooting guide [1]. switches are used for triggering the gear shift. Two of these
switches are mounted on the steering wheel. Trigger signal has
to be generated only when the driver presses the switches,
B. Solid State Relays hence momentary normally open switches are used.
C. Microcontroller
Fig. 4: Circuit Diagram
ArduinoMega2560 was the chosen microcontroller board
which is based on the Atmega2560. It was decided to build A rotary potentiometer is attached to the pivot point of the
RPM meter and gear shift indicator along with the shifting input gear shift lever and it sends the signal to the
system. ArduinoMega2560’s [3] increased number of microprocessor. This is used for indicating the current gear.
analog/digital input and output pins made it the most suitable. Hence the electronic gear shifter acts as a closed loop system.
Required libraries were downloaded from online The potentiometer measures angular displacement of the
repositories [4]. The gear shift indicator and the RPM meter shifter and will compensate the error by actuating the
are mounted on the dash board. solenoids.
X. ACKNOWLEDGMENT