FAQ

Why are there two accelerator pedal position sensors?

This is a safety feature. According to Formula SAE rules (changing each year so not citing here), the acccelerator pedal must use two sensors and compare the positions of them in real time. If the pedals indicate more than a 10% different in position, it can be assumed the accelerator pedal system is broken and should not be trusted. The VC requests 0 torque in this case.

Why do we use a brake pressure sensor if we just need to know if the brake is pressed or not?

The brake pressure sensor is actually used by a separate safety circuit, so it already is part of our architecture for a reason. If that were not the case, we totally could just use a boolean brake switch, which some EV builds actually do. There is a switch on our brake pedal, but it is entirely hardware integrated and shuts down the car if the brake pedal malfunctions and travels too far. This is called the brake over travel (BOT) switch.