Microcontrollers for Highly Automated Rail Vehicles
- Typ: Practical course / lab
- Lehrstuhl: Railway Systems Engineering
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Ort:
Campus East, Building 70.04, Room 004
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Zeit:
7 sessions of 3 hours each, 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sessions
29 October; 05 November; 12 November; 19 November; 26 November; 3 December; 10 December 2026
Colloquium (Examination)
Appointment on February or January 2027. Exact day and time will be discussed in the first lecture of the course. - Beginn: 29 October 2026
- Dozent:
- SWS: 2
- ECTS: 4
- LVNr.: 2115930
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Prüfung:
Examination:
Assessment is carried out in the form of a short colloquium after each lecture (round robin between the groups), as well as a final comprehensive colloquium including a 20-minute presentation and an approximately 5-page report. -
Hinweis:
Note: Maximum of 10 slots. To participate please register by 28. October 2026 at 10:00 p.m. via the registration form on the institute’s website. Attendance is mandatory in this course.
Learning Objectives
As part of the practical course, the fundamentals of microcontroller programming are taught using examples from the field of highly automated rail vehicles. Using experimental setups that students build themselves or extend, the course demonstrates the possibilities of programming microcontrollers as well as connecting them with various sensors. In the independently conducted experiments, the focus is on decoding sensor data for localization and environment detection, as well as on controlling DC motors.
The practical course teaches the ability to independently develop and build circuits consisting of multiple controllers and sensors.
Practical Course Content
1. Introduction to MATLAB/Simulink
Fundamentals of MATLAB/Simulink
Independent work: Developing simple scripts in MATLAB/Simulink
2. Introduction to Raspberry Pi and Arduino
Fundamentals of microcontrollers
Fundamentals of the MATLAB/Simulink and Arduino IDE programming environments
Independent work: Commissioning microcontrollers and integrating them into a development environment
3. Commissioning and Wiring of Microcontrollers
Fundamentals of electrical circuits and interfaces for microcontrollers
Construction of a circuit using various microcontrollers
Practical usage of interfaces between the microcontrollers
Independent work: Transferring data between the individual components and evaluating the interfaces based on latency
4. Integration of Sensors and Actuators
Wiring of motors and sensors
Independent work: Controlling motors and reading simple sensor data
5. Drive Control
Reading sensor data for distance measurement
Independent work: Controlling motor speed depending on various sensor data
6. Reading Complex Sensor Data
Fundamentals of LiDAR and localization sensors
Independent work: Measurement of localization or LiDAR data
7. Building a Highly Automated System
Overview of the overall system of highly automated rail vehicles
Independent work: Combining the previous practical course content into a functional system
Literature
- Dembowski, K. (2020). Raspberry Pi - Das technsiche Handbuch. Springer Vieweg.
- Pietruzska, W. D., & Glöckler, M. (2021). Matlab und Simulink in der Ingenieurpraxis: Modellbildung, Berechnung und Simulation. Springer Vieweg.
- Schreiter, D. (2019). Arduino Kompendium: Elektronik, Programmierung und Projekte. BMU Verlag.