The dvelopment of solar racing car prototype

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to construct the solar car prototype. The car uses flexible solar panels with the battery as a power source. Thereafter, the performance of the solar car is tested in the actual condition. This solar car’s body was developed by fiberglass and the internal structure was made from the steel. This car uses the 2 kW brushless DC motor to be the prime mover and the motor is driven by the regenerative dc converter. The power sources are 480 watts of the flexible solar panel with a charger to charge power to four of 12V 33Ah battery. The total weight of the solar car is 173 kg. The solar car’s weight including driver is about 233.4 kg. The solar car test drive is on 10 km distance. The result found that the car has: (1) the average speed is equal to 45.98km/h by using only battery (2) the average speed is equal to 51 km/h when the battery is combined with solar panels. This knowledge should be applied to develop the next version of the solar racing car.