Prof. Dr. Moritz Diehl, Yunfan Gao, Andrea Ghezzi
Course description
The focus of this lab is to give the participants hands-on experience in applying advanced control and estimation algorithms on model race cars.
This lab is completely project-based. Each two students will form a group and define a project they would like to work on. The project can be slightly changed during the semester. The final assessment will be based on the final presentation and project report.
There will be weekly meetings at the race car setup. During these meetings tests can be run on the race cars and it is possible to discuss questions that come up. These meetings are mandatory for all participants.
Prerequisites
Passing one of the following exams is mandatory: “Modeling and System Identification”, “Numerical Optimization”, “Numerical Optimal Control”, and “Introduction to Mobile Robotics”.
How to register
Registration deadline: 20.03.2026
If you feel interested, please send an email to Yunfan Gao (yunfan.gao@imtek.uni-freiburg.de) and Andrea Ghezzi (andrea.ghezzi@imtek.uni-freiburg.de) with your transcript and a short motivation statement (three/four sentences).
In case you already have a teammate in mind, please let us know their name.
If you have ideas on the project that you would like to work on, feel free to describe it in a few sentences in the email. We also have a few project topics in mind and could share with you via email. In case we receive many applications, we might do short interviews.
Participants will be announced on 01.04.2026.
Course schedule
First session: Wednesday 22.04.2026 from 14:00 to 16:00 room: SR 00-006, Building 51.
Introduction to race car setup.
Preliminary discussion about projects and timeline of the course.
ATTENDANCE TO THIS LECTURE IS MANDATORY!
Second session: Wednesday 29.04.2026 from 14:00 to 16:00 room: SR 00-006, Building 51.
We decide together with the participants who work on which project.
Introduction to the race car software package.
The following session will take place weekly on Wednesdays from 14:00 to 16:00 at the Race Car Control Lab (Room 00-039, Building 51, room changes from the previous sessions).
Presentation: around end of June, a tentative date will be announced.
Every group will present the results of their project.
Report and documentation submission: 2 weeks after presentation
Resources
Two papers (Carron et al., 2022) (Bodmer et al., 2024) describing the current setup.
Source code of the Control and Robotics Software (CRS).
Presentation and Report
You will have 10 minutes for the presentation of your project, followed by around 10 minutes of questions. Depending on the project, there may be the opportunity for a live demonstration.
Two weeks after the presentation you have to submit a project report. We strongly recommend using Latex and the two-column IEEE template for conferences (can be downloaded here). Your report be around three pages (plus/minus one page), including a clear definition of the problem you worked on, your approach, and the results. You should incorporate the feedback from the presentations into your report.
Contact person: Yunfan Gao (yunfan.gao@imtek.uni-freiburg.de) and Andrea Ghezzi (andrea.ghezzi@imtek.uni-freiburg.de)