WSC successes today shine brightly on cars of tomorrow

The all-student Stanford Solar Car Project, from Stanford University (USA), chose STM32F4 MCU for various applications in their solar car, Arctan. The ARM Cortex-M core MCUs monitor battery life and solar-panel efficiency and manage the electric motor and driver-control functions. In Arctan, the 4^th Stanford solar car with ST components, the STM32 MCU optimise car performance based on real-time analysis of vehicle and environmental conditions. Over the years, the team has evaluated and incorporated other ST components including the SPV1020, a boost converter that optimises photovoltaic power generation and ST imaging systems for rear-view cameras.

“The variety of ST parts selected showcases the diversity of our product portfolio and, in particular, the large number of STM32 microcontrollers demonstrates the outstanding balance of energy efficiency and performance we offer,” said Paul Grimme, Executive Vice President Mass Market and Online Marketing Programs, STMicroelectronics. “ST components for Smart Driving have proven their reliability in previous World Solar Challenges; we can’t wait to see some of the teams’ energy-efficiency and safety innovations move into the cars we’ll all be driving in the future. We wish all teams the best of luck.”

The student-run University of Michigan (USA) Solar Car Team built Aurum, which features STM32F4 MCU delivering intelligence in several vital applications. These include the critically important battery-management systems to measure and control voltage and current consumption, steering through an LCD and button inputs, and dashboard management with a user-input panel for various car settings and controls.

The University of Minnesota (USA) Solar Vehicle Project was founded by a team of undergraduates 25 years ago. This year’s team is competing with its solar car, Eos, which derives its intelligence from STM32F4 MCU, powering every system on the car. This choice was taken to allow the systems to act independently while still communicating with each other. Among other components, the team picked ST Power MOSFETs (STD30NF03LT4 / STR2N2VH5) for their reliability and performance to go into about every system in the car and TVS diodes for protection of the input and output of the vehicle’s main DC-DC buck converter on the Primary Power board.

The Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) in Surabaya, Indonesia is home to a group of multidisciplinary students who have assembled the solar car Widya Wahana. The car contains several STM32 MCU from both the F0 and F4 series, as well as motor drivers (L6235) and power transistors and utilises the SPV1020 to maximise the power generated by the car’s photovoltaic panels.

Inaugurated in 1987, the biennial World Solar Challenge encourages and showcases the development of advanced automotive technology while promoting alternatives to conventional vehicle engines. Participating teams are required to navigate their solar-powered car from Darwin in the north of Australia to Adelaide in the south, across 3,000km of the harsh Australian Outback, using only the sun and careful energy management for power. This year, the organisers have reported the event has attracted a record participation of 47 teams from 25 countries.