Blog

In motorsport, speed is not only required on the race track. Engineers who support racing teams also have to work at breakneck speed to fix problems, and that is somethingAakhilesh Singhania enjoy.

Singhania is a senior application engineer atBosch Engineeringin Novi, Michigan. It develops and supports electronic control systems for hybrid racing cars that have internal combustion engines and battery-powered electric motors.

His vehicles take part in two legendary endurance races: theRolex 24 at Daytona in Daytona Beach, Florida, and the24 Hours of Le Mans in France. He spends his time refining the underlying technology and providing track support on race day. The job is very demanding, given the relentless pace of the racing calendar and the huge time pressures when the cars are on track. But Singhania says he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I’ve done jobs where the work was monotonous and repetitive,” he says. “Here I’m constantly challenged. Every second counts and you have to make decisions very quickly.”

An early interest in motorsport

Singhania grew up in Calcutta, India, and inherited his fascination with cars from his father, a car enthusiast.

When Singhania began his mechanical engineering studies at the IndianManipal Institute of Technologyhe was involved in the Formula Student Program, an international engineering competition that challenges teams of university students to design, build and race a small racing car. The cars typically weigh less than 250 kilograms and can have an engine of no more than 710 cubic centimeters.

“It really hooked me,” he says. “I devoted a lot of my free time to the program and the experience really motivated me to delve deeper into motorsport.”

One incident in particular left its mark on Singhania’s career. In 2013, he was leading Manipal’s Formula Student team and was one of the drivers at a competition in Germany. When he tried to start the vehicle, smoke poured out of the battery and the team had to abandon the race.

“I asked myself what I could have done differently,” he says. “The problem was that I didn’t know the car’s electrical system.” So he decided to gain more experience and education.

Get to know automotive electronics

After graduating in 2014, Singhania started developing engines for an Indian automobile manufacturerTata Motors in Pune. In 2016, he left India to fill his knowledge gaps in the field of automotive electronics and began a master’s degree in automotive engineering at theUniversity of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

He took courses in battery management, hybrid control and control theory and used his knowledge to do an internship at Bosch in 2017. After graduating in 2018, he started working full-time at Bosch as a calibration engineer, developing technologies for hybrid and electric vehicles.

The move to motorsport required perseverance, says Singhania. He became friends with the Bosch team that worked on electronics for racing cars. His big breakthrough came in 2020.

This yearInternational Motorsport Federation and the France-basedAutomobile Club of the West has created standardized rules that allow the same hybrid racing cars to participate in both the North American sports car championship, where the famous race takes place in Daytona, and the worldwide World Endurance Championship, where the race takes place in Le Mans.

Bosch’s motorsport team began preparing a proposal to provide a standardized hybrid system. Singhania, whose work already included creating simulations of vehicle electrification, agreed to offer his help.

“I’m constantly challenged. Every second counts and you have to make decisions very quickly.”

The competition organizers chose Bosch as the lead developer of the hybrid system that would be made available to all teams. Bosch engineers also had to test the hardware they provided to each team to ensure that no one team had an advantage.

“The performance of all our parts in all our cars must vary within 1 percent,” says Singhania.

After Bosch won the contract, Singhania was officially appointed as a motorsport calibration engineer and was responsible for fine-tuning the software to the specific characteristics of each individual vehicle.

In 2022, he took on his current role: developing software for the Hybrid Control Unit (HCU), which is essentially the brain of the vehicle. The HCU helps coordinate all the different subsystems, such as the engine, battery and electric motor, and is responsible for balancing the power demands of these different components to maximize performance and durability.

Bosch engineers have also developed a software called the equity model that runs on the HCU. It is based on historical data collected during the operation of the various components of the hybrid system and monitors their performance in real time to ensure that the hardware of all teams is operating at the same level.

In addition, Singhania creates simulations of the race cars to gain a better understanding of how the different components interact and what impact changing their configuration would have on performance.

Race day troubleshooting

But technology development is only part of Singhania’s job. On race days, he works as a support engineer, helping to troubleshoot problems with the hybrid system when they arise. Singhania and his colleagues monitor each team’s hardware using computers on the Bosch race trailer, a mobile nerve center that is hard-wired to the organizers’ control center at the race track.

“We continuously monitor all telemetry data coming from the hybrid system and analyze the health and performance of the system,” he says.

When Bosch engineers discover a problem or are informed of it by a team, they rush to the pit to retrieve a USB stick from the vehicle containing detailed data to help them diagnose and fix the problem.

After the race, Bosch engineers analyze the telemetry data to find ways to improve the performance of the unified hybrid system for all teams. In motorsport, where fractions of a second can make the difference between victory and defeat, such continuous improvements are crucial.

Customers “put a lot of money into this program and are there to win,” Singhania says.

Entry into motorsport technology

Many engineers dream of working in the fast-paced and exciting world of motorsports. But getting started is not easy. The most important lesson Singhania has learned is: If you don’t ask, you won’t be invited.

“Stay on top of things because no one is going to make you an offer,” he says. “You have to keep talking to people and be ready when the opportunity comes.”

Proving that you have experience working on challenging projects is a great help. Many of the engineers hired by Bosch have been involved in Formula Student or similar automotive engineering programs, such as theEcoCAR EV Challengesays Singhania.

However, he says the job is not for everyone. It is demanding and requires a lot of travel and working on weekends during the racing season. But if you can cope well under pressure and have a knack for problem solving, it is hard to find a more exciting job.

This article appears in the July 2024 print edition under the title “Aakhilesh Singhania”.