On the 24th November, an audience of over 100 people gathered together to watch the 2015 IET Tustin Lecture.    The lecture, entitled, Reducing lap times and fuel consumption in F1 was given by Professor David Limebeer, Professor of Control Engineering and Professorial Fellow at New College Oxford. This highly complex and technical talk focused on the control of the hybrid thermal-electric power train, and looked at, amongst other things, fuel efficient engines in cars and other vehicles.


It is a general trend in the automotive industry that engines be downsized and emissions reduced and it is no different in Formula 1. It was fascinating to hear that new F1 engines have two types of energy recovery system or “ERS”: the first (ERS-K) recovers kinetic energy from the braking system much like the regenerative braking systems on commercial hybrid road vehicles; the second (ERS-H) is a thermal recovery system situated on the shaft of the turbocharger.  Professor Limebeer introduced to the audience some mathematical techniques for optimising driver controls, such as the steering, the brakes and the throttle.


After the talk, Jonatathon Maldonado, the winner of the IET Control PhD Award was presented with his certificate before the the audience reconvened to network and take advantage of a canape buffet.


If you weren't able to get to the event, don't worry, we did film the presentation - so please keep checking back for the link which will be added to this blog posting as soon as it is available, but in the meantime, here's a taster with our highlights video