International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 23-26, 2000 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / This student paper was produced as part of the team design competition in the University of Arizona course ECE 485, Radiowaves and Telemetry. It describes the design of a telemetry system for the University of Arizona’s Daedalus solar car. This is a distributed, low-power, telemetry-on-demand system that solves many of the problems typically encountered in this specialized telemetry application. The topology of the distributed microcontroller system is shown, as are optimal command and data packet structures. Also featured is a high-gain, low profile antenna system designed specifically for the solar car. Additionally, a customized chase car operator interface is illustrated.

There is a need to improve the JU Solar Team's new solar cell powered electric car's driving capabilities for the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge 2019. Partly to improve the car's safety and the ability to meet the competition requirements, but also to minimize effects that contribute to increased rolling resistance. The work is carried out at Jönköping Institute of Technology with support from ÅF Automotive in Trollhättan. The work aims to parameterize driving characteristics with engineering requirements, evaluate how the rolling resistance can be minimized, how negative driving characteristics can be minimized and a weight comparison with wheel suspension from 2017. This is the basis for the construction of the 2019 wheel suspension adapted for new body designed and manufactured in parallel with this work. The study includes performed measurements of the side force impact on steering angle change and camber change, calculation of load case, concept generation and evaluation, computer-aided strength evaluations. The results of the survey show great weaknesses in the 2017 solar car. In the case of an applied side force in the front wheel, a large wheel angle change occurs. This is largely due to under-dimensioned steering arms and the geometric design of the points. The influence of the side force on the steering angle has theoretically been reduced by at least 44% verified in CAD environment. In addition to this improvement, the entire wheel suspension system's attachments and sub-components are stiffer, which should contribute to an even greater improvement. The study also shows that the steering angle was insufficient to meet the competition requirements, which could be improved by 21.2% greater steering angle on the wheels. The spring and damper's operating ratio in comparison with the wheel has also been evaluated and has been able to be increased from 31% to 51.5%. This leads to reduced forces on the link arms and body by 20.5% during the same external load case. The study is limited to evaluating the hard points of the wheel suspension as well as the strength and design of the link arms, steering arm, suspension and damping attachment.

This thesis analyzes the interior of the solar car, used by the JU Solar Team, to improve the user experience in terms of user interaction and ergonomics. Following the Design Thinking methodology, it starts with a research phase to understand how the user interacts with the car and the elements required for this interaction during the race. It also studies the dimension of the actual interior and the anthropometric factors, some changes are proposed for a more efficient use of the space. The next phase explores new buttons and configurations for the steering wheel. The use of prototypes and sketches leads the development of the ideas, which are further developed and defined, including the graphical design and the dimensions of the interior. In the findings, the redesign of the steering wheel and interior is shown in several renders with an explanation of the final design decisions, which can be summarized in: A new shape for the steering wheel where most of the buttons have been added with new shapes and colors. The emergency buttons and light indicators have been allocated on a central control panel. The user has access to the buttons without releasing the steering wheel and the dimension of the canapé has been reduced thanks to a more efficient use of the space. As a part of the thesis a full scale model of the steering wheels and a 1:10 scale model of the interior is provided. This thesis solves some of the problems in the actual design of the solar car and explore some of the important factors in user interaction. A human-centered design approach to a project usually driven by the performance of the car and not the user experience. / Denna avhandling omfattar utveckling av interiör för solbilar med inriktning mot att förbättra för användaren. Arbetet avser att appliceras på Ju Solar teams solbil som ska delta för Högskolan i Jönköping i World Solar Challenge 2017. Forskningen i projektet fokuserar på att förstå hur användaren interagerar och samspelar med bilen och de faktiska problem som föraren har att hantera under tävlingen. Studien omfattar också antropometriska mått där förslag på ändringar gjorts för att optimera utrymmet. Utvärdering av idéer har gjorts med hjälp av skisser och prototyper, som inkluderar den grafiska designen Designbesluten kan sammanfattas med följande: • De viktiga knapparna är alla samlade i ratten. • Användning av form och färg samt position för att enkelt kunna skilja mellan knappar och dess funktioner. • Ny form för ratten med en extra grepp-zon i den övre delen. Ny utformning av knappar, former och konfiguration för ratten. • En central manöverpanel med ljusindikatorer för föraren. • Nya dimensioner av interiören för att minska förarhuvens storlek och därmed minska luftmotståndet. Som en del av avhandlingen finns en fullskalemodell av ratten och en modell i skala 1:10 av interiören tillhandahålls. Solbilar utvecklas vanligen med prestanda som prioritet men denna avhandling utforskar de problemområden som finns i anslutning till solbilens förarmiljö med människan i centrum.

This thesis describes the development of an electrical system for a solar powered racing vehicle with en emphasis on the Battery Protection System (BPS). This battery protection system was designed for the UTSVT’s (University of Texas Solar Vehicles Team) solar powered vehicle, the Samsung Solorean. The system is required due to the dangers of the lithium-ion cobalt battery chemistry. The system monitors the voltage, temperature, and current of each battery module in the 22 module battery pack and will physically isolate the pack from the rest of the vehicle with a high-current electromechanical contactor if any parameter is outside of the safe range. The system can be expanded to monitor any number of series battery cells. The system uses a master-slave microcontroller architecture with a single master microcontroller that interrogates several slave microcontroller boards for readings over a common serial bus. The system uses a new voltage sensing ASIC to monitor cell voltages, along with an analog current output device to measure temperature and a hall-effect device to measure current. The system was a complete success and has allowed the UT solar car to finish the American Solar Challenge cross-country “Rayce.” / text

The global interest in green vehicleshas been growing since it is letting out less pollution than normal internal combustion engines (ICE) and many people want to get into the ecological-friendly alternative mode of transport. The solar car is one of these types of green vehicles, which is powered by renewable energy with zero emissions. The solar car makes use of its solar panel that uses photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electricity to the batteries and to also power the electric motor. The state of solar cars is that it is almost exclusively for competition and when competing a strategy is needed to get the best placement. Having knowledge about how the car is behaving is a good basis for building a driving strategy. Therefore, a case study is made on World Solar Challenge (WSC) focused on the cars of JU Solar team with the use of datasets such as topographical data and solar irradiation. An optimization model is made that inputs these datasets and simulates a time period (an hour) and checks the set battery discharge rate (BDR or C rating). It is concluded that a safe BDR is between 8 to 9 % per hour (i.e. 0.08 to 0.09 C), relative to the full capacity of the battery. Results shows an improved mean speeds of the solar cars and improved finish times. The model also works very well for solar cars that are not meant for racing. Since it keeps a relatively stable state of charge for long term driving, that ensures battery longevity. With these results JU Solar team can use this model to improve their driving strategy but could also be used for economical driving for the future of commercial solar cars. This paper recommends to follow a simple procedure, to keep the BDR on 9% as long as the sun irradiation stays above 800 W/m2, and lower the BDR to 8% if irradiation goes below 800 W/m. Adjustments to increase the BDR for the end of the race is also recommended for optimal driving strategy.

Jönköping University Solar Team deltog år 2015 i tävlingen World Solar Challenge som körs vartannat år i Australien. Team från hela världen deltar i denna tävling där de konstruerar solbilar som de sedan tävlar med i ett race på ca 3000 km från Darwin till Adelaide. En solbil är en elbil som även är utrustad med solpaneler för att ge en teoretiskt oändlig körsträcka så länge bilen har tillgång till solenergi. Jönköping University kom på 15 plats i detta race och ville till nästa race förbättra sin konkurrenskraft. Eftersom det var ett race och varje teams mål var att använda sin bil så effektivt som möjligt behövdes ett system för att övervaka och logga batteridata och presentera det för teamet. Det var även fördelaktigt om teamet kunde få någon form av energiprognos för att kunna bestämma vilken hastighet som solbilen bör hålla. Ett system som loggar och överför denna information från solbilen till en följebil utvecklades och utvärderades. Syftet med denna studie var således: Öka Jönköping University Solar Teams konkurrenskraft genom att förse följebilen med ett beslutsstöd som i realtid övervakar och loggar solbilens batterinivå och energiförbrukning. Design Science Research användes som metod för att genomföra detta syfte, vilket gav möjligheten att utveckla systemet som en artefakt och använda denna för att presentera resultatet. Tre olika experiment utfördes för att konstatera funktionaliten på den trådlösa kommunikationen, hur rättvisande systemet var samt hur väl energiförbrukningen kunde förutsägas. I resultatet beskrivs hela artefakten och tillsammans med experimenten konstaterades att systemet kommer att ge Jönköping University Solar Team en högre konkurrenskraft i nästa race. / Jönköping University Solar Team participated in the 2015 edition of World Solar Challenge, which is held every other year in Australia. Teams from all around the world participates in the competition in which they construct a solar car and competes in a 3000 km long race from Darwin to Adelaide. A solar car is an electric car equipped with solar panels to give it a theoretical infinite mileage as long as the car have access to solar energy. Jönköping University came in 15th place in this race and would like to improve their competitiveness in the next race. Because it is a competition and the goal for every team is to use their car as efficiently as possible a system to log and monitor the battery and present the information to the team was needed. It would also be good to have some kind of energy consumption forecast that would be used to decide the speed the solar car should keep. A system that collect, stores and transmits the information from the solar car to an escort vehicle was developed and evaluated. Thus, the pursues of this studies were: Improve Jönköping University Solar Teams competitiveness by provide a decision support which in real time monitor and log the solar car battery level and energy consumption. Design Science Research was used as a method to realize this purpose, which gave the opportunity to develop the system as an artifact and use this to present the result. Three different experiments were constructed to determine the functionality of the wireless communication, how accurate the system was and how well the energy consumption could be predicted. In the results the artifact is described as a whole and together with the experiments it is found that the system will give Jönköping University Solar Team a higher competitiveness in the next race.