Solar Phantom: Rose-Hulman's Solar Racer

The objectives of our project at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology were to build a competitive and reliable solar vehicle at minimum cost. This article presents a brief summary of our vehicle design. The main body of the article addresses the computer-aided design of Solar Phantom's photovoltaic (PV) array and its integration with the vehicle electrical system. The main advantage our design was the high solar efficiency achieved without using peak power trackers. Measured results for our solar array are presented and compared with the computer-generated data. Some of our experiences with the vehicle from the GM Sunrayce are also presented.