The Application of GPS and GIS Technologies in Support of the UNSW Solar Car Teams in the 1996 & 1999 'World Solar Challenge'

 

1996 WSC Race

In October 1996, the University of New South Wales for the first time raced a solarcar in the 1996 World Solar Challenge, from Darwin to Adelaide, for a distance of over 3000km along the Stuart Highway. The solar-charging, battery-powered vehicle "Sunswift" runs on a power load approximately that of a hairdryer, consequently a knowledge of the road conditions was essential for the strategist to optimally race the vehicle.

Several months prior to the race, A SNAP team used precise kinematic GPS techniques to survey the vertical profile of the race route. A road database of 97,000 points was produced: position-tagged road grade, chainage, road roughness values, cattle grids, towns and other features.

During the race itself the location of the support car following close behind "Sunswift" was determined using the RACAL Wide Area DGPS service delivering RTCM corrections by the AUSSAT B communications satellite. The coordinates permitted real-time cross-referencing to the road database. The "Sunswift Tracker" software, written by graduate students, provided the link between the DGPS positions and the database.

"Sunswift" completed the race in 9th position.

Full details on SNAP's contributions may be found in the two articles:

WONG, K., ROBERTS, C., HAN, S., HIRSCH, B., RIZOS, C., & MASTERS, E.G. (1996), "GPS in support of the 1996 World Solar Car Challenge - part 2", Aust. Surveyor, 41(4), 269-277. Download the PDF file (2.3 MB)
WONG, K., & RIZOS, C. (1996), "Surveying the Stuart Highway with GPS for the 1996 World Solar Car Challenge - part 1", Aust. Surveyor, 41(3), 194-203. Download the PDF file (424 kB)

Survey crew relaxing at Ayers Rock, July 1996

More photographs of the 1996 WSC and Sunswift ...

 

1999 WSC Race

A new "Sunswift II" contested the 1999 World Solar Challenge, and again the combined technologies of GPS and GIS were used. The 1999 WSC race started from Adelaide on the 17th October. The winning car crossed the finishing line in Darwin on the evening of the 21st October. Unfortunately the "Sunswift II" car suffered solar array problems that slowed their progress in the first half of the race, but luckily, the team was able to discover and solve their array problem. For the two days of racing prior to their finish, they were running at normal racing speeds, and thus the team were able to make up valuable time, and move up from 22nd place to finish 18th.

The road grade data collected in 1996 has been made available to several solar car racing crews. The School is prepared to continue to support the UNSW solar car racers if its assistance is required.