Solar Team Sneek is a solar team based in Sneek, Holland, the famous water sports capital of the Netherlands, that participates in various solar boat challenges across Europe. The team consists of a group of students and graduates from various disciplines such as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and marine/composite engineering, and their goal is to show the potential of electric boats and electric cars for a sustainable future.
At the beginning of 2022, Kvaser supplied Solar Team Sneek in the Netherlands with a Kvaser Ethercan HS to commission a CAN bus combined with a 4G router to build a telemetry system for a solar vessel. We interviewed Meindert de Groot, electrical engineer of the team, to find out how they areHow to use Kvaser Ethercan HS to build CAN system and telemetry system.And theyHow to monitor data remotely.
Remote data tracking to predict sailing status
The Solar Team Sneek team uses a CAN bus to communicate between the ship's electronic components, including collecting data from all the components (battery charging status, discharge, etc.) and monitoring the amount of energy produced by each solar string through data from the MMPT (Maximum Power Point Tracker). They use the solar energy information to decide whether to use hydrofoils in order to minimize energy loss while achieving maximum speed, and this data helps them to project sailing speeds.
The Kvaser Ethercan HS is a CAN bus adapter with real-time Ethernet connectivity, first used by Solar Team Sneek.Kvaser Ethercan HS Bridging CAN and EthernetThe Ethernet packets are read by 4G modems and sent to the cloud, and they can be accessed from anywhere with the help of a VPN.
“To utilize energy efficiently, we need to closely monitor all the components in the electrical system, and with sufficient energy, the hydrofoil is able to reach speeds of more than 16 km/hour. Each solar panel has its own MPPT, which transmits data on a CAN bus, and we are able toIndividual monitoring of the energy absorbed by each solar panel。”
Electrical Engineer Meindert de Groot
The Kvaser Ethercan HS also enables Solar Team Seek to remotely view CAN bus data such as battery voltage, battery temperature, inlet and outlet currents, charging status, and solar inverter data. They can also deduce the boat's sailing efficiency from speed and motor power, and by comparing data sets from regular tests in the cloud, they can instantly detect propulsion problems and make improvements.
Kvaser Ethercan HS Experience
“The Kvaser Ethercan HS runs smoothly and we have had no problems using it. We downloaded the driver from the Kvaser website and used the Kvaser CanKing to check that the data was being transferred accurately. Once connected, we were able to quickly set up the Ethercan configuration andInstant data delivery over Ethernet to laptops running our own software., which then logs the data into the Prometheus database and then reads the data through Grafana.”
Electrical Engineer Meindert de Groot
In the summer of 2022, Solar Team Sneek participated in a water race in Europe and the solar boat was in good shape. However, after about 10 kilometers of coasting, the boat was hit by an underwater object on the drive unit in the rear hydrofoil. The next day after the repair, the team hit the underwater object again and regrettably withdrew from the race. Although there was no way to avoid the accident, they said they will continue to improve the performance of the boat and participate in the 2023 race.
Products
Kvaser Ethercan HSIt is an adapter that instantly connects Ethernet to a CAN bus. When it is connected to an Ethernet-equipped computer over the network, you can use the adapter to connect to the CAN bus.Remote access to CAN bus data from any locationWhen you can't power your devices through the CAN bus. The built-in power over Ethernet (PoE) eliminates the need to connect a separate power cable to the device when you can't power the device through the CAN bus.
The Kvaser Ethercan series simplifies the implementation of the Internet of Things (IoT) concept by using the standard Kvaser CANlib API to allow data from all CAN devices or systems to be transmitted over the corporate network or WAN. users of the Kvaser Ethercan HS also have the option of connecting to the device using the built-in REST API for networked devices (e.g., smartphones). The Kvaser Ethercan HS can also be connected to devices using built-in REST API network devices such as smartphones.
As a programmable adapter, the Kvaser Ethercan HS is suitable for a variety of advanced applications, such as upgrading in-vehicle computers. For example, a t program can be created to process CAN messages at the site where the device is located, thus avoiding delays in WiFi or Ethernet.
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This post reprints a partner Kvaser article
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