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  • Author Author: cheryldocherty
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Introduction to University of Strathclyde Eco-Vehicle (USEV)

cheryldocherty

Hello! I’m Cheryl, Co-Head of Electronics for the University of Strathclyde Eco-Vehicle (USEV) Team. We are a society whose aim is to design, manufacture, test and race a highly efficient Electric Vehicle to compete in the Shell Eco-Marathon (SEM). The competition sees university teams from across Europe compete to travel the furthest distance on the equivalent of one Litre of fuel, judged by comparing efficiency across 11 laps of a 1.4km track. More information on the competition is posted on Shell’s website: https://www.shell.com/make-the-future/shell-ecomarathon.html.

 

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USEV team at SEM 2018

 

Last year was our first year on track, where we achieved an efficiency of 2700MPG-equivalent, and this year we are confident that we will achieve higher still. We were running with a 1000W DC motor on a 48V system, which was overkill for the requirements of our car, however this year we have switched to a 500W motor and a 36V system which we hope will aid us in pursuit of a higher efficiency.

 

As part of the competition, we are required to design and manufacture a custom Motor Controller board, however on top of this we are also designing and building a custom Body Controller, Speed Sensor as well as Power Distribution Boards. We have also designed and are in the process of manufacturing a modular battery pack to aid in the ease of replacing faulty cells. Additionally, we are implementing a telemetry system for the first time this year, which consists of a custom CAN bus protocol to communicate between the nodes of our system, with data being stored both locally and remotely via a server.

 

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Speed Sensor Board

 

 

A big “thank you” should go to Farnell, who have kindly sponsored us to provide all of our electronics components used within the car! This has been a massive help to us, and we can’t wait to start posting our updates on element14. Stay tuned on our blog to keep updated!

 

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On track at SEM 2018

 

Check out our website at https://www.usev.co.uk/ or social media:

Facebook - @USEVTeam

Twitter - @usecovehicle

Instagram - @usecovehicle