Business Plan for an Autonomous Driving Formula car in the FSG17 competition

5 1 INTRODUCTION This elaborate comes from the work of the Florence Race Team's business section, which is part of the Florentine University Team that participates in Formula SAE races. Formula SAE is a student design competition organized by SAE International (previously known as the Society of Automotive Engineers, SAE). The competition started in 1980 by the SAE student branch at the University of Texas at Austin after a prior asphalt racing competition proved to be unsustainable. The concept behind Formula SAE is that a fictional manufacturing company has contracted a student design team to develop a small Formula-style race car. The prototype race car has evaluated for its potential as a production item. The target marketing group for the race car is the non-professional weekend autocross racer. Each student team designs, builds and tests a prototype based on a series of rules, whose purpose is both ensuring on-track safety (the cars are driven by students themselves) and promoting clever problem solving. Formula SAE encompasses all aspects of a business including research, design, manufacturing, testing, developing, marketing, management, and fund raising. This thesis shows the Business Plan presented at a Formula SAE competition in Hockeneimring (Germany) in 2007, fundamental for the static test of Business Presentation, where students roleplay as a mock startup company and intend to receive funding and support from investors. The business plan’s object is a self-driving car, also known as a robot car, autonomous car, or driverless car which is a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and moving with little or no human input. Autonomous cars combine a variety of sensors to perceive their surroundings, such as radar, Lidar, sonar, GPS, odometry and inertial measurement units. Advanced control systems interpret sensory information to identify appropriate navigation paths, as well as obstacles and relevant signage. Long distance trucks are seen as being in the forefront of adopting and implementing the technology. Autonomous vehicles will be the near future for the automotive market all over the world. 1.1 Executive Summary Firenze Race is a start-up company founded on the business idea of ten engineers from the University of Florence. We joined our knowledge with the goal of realizing a high-performance single-seat vehicle: following the Lean Startup method, with its Pivot and Customers Development procedures, we were able to design the amazing FR-17DT, conceived to satisfy customer’s expectation.