Date: 22/11/2010

Four STM32 MCUs takes full control of student designed solar car

ST has announced its STM32 MCUs are used in the 'Xenith solar car' designed and built by Stanford students to compete in a 3,000-kilometer challenge from Darwin to Adelaide in Australia. ST says its microcontroller chips handles all subsystems from solar power conversion to cruise control behavior, from helmet-mounted display control to how fast the car accelerates.

Four STM32 microcontrollers track the maximum power point to optimize output from the Xenith-car's solar arrays, while another STM32 device monitors the voltage, measures the temperature and current, and performs critical operations such as controlling the flow of power through the vehicle. Other STM32 microcontrollers manage communication between the driver, the vehicle, the motor controller, and the rear-wheel steering system, and handle ancillary systems such as lighting, telemetry, and tire-pressure monitoring.

"There are many complicated systems in the solar vehicle that must all function and interact without hiccups - and on a minimal energy budget," said Gregory Hall, Stanford Solar Car Project. "ST's powerful, flexible and reliable control devices have an extremely powerful peripheral set and high-quality libraries, which made them a perfect match for our project's exacting performance demands and fast development schedule."

The Stanford Solar Car Project is a student-run, nonprofit effort designed to give students hands-on engineering, project management and business experience while raising awareness of clean-energy vehicles. The team operates on a two-year design-and-build cycle, and is funded by donations. More information online at http://solarcar.stanford.edu