Gallery: How a Car Racing the Outback Can Boost Solar in the US
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The University of Michigan's solar car resembles a catamaran on wheels, and is using IBM tech for better weather forecasting.
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The 5 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery and DC brushless motor are quite capable of propelling the carbon fiber car—which weighs 550 pounds with the driver—to highway speeds, but don’t expect to see it in the fast lane.
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The company’s two-pronged approach, under development for more than two years, includes new hardware and a whole lot of data.
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The first prong is the sky camera, which is exactly what it sounds like. It uses a wide-field camera and a pyrometer to measure solar irradiance, which you probably call sunshine.
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The second prong is Big Data. IBM gathers past weather predictions from various agencies around the world—up to 10 years’ worth in some spots—and compares them with the actual weather from that time and place.
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The IBM researchers are happy to help out a crew of young engineers chase the sun through Australia, but they’ve got bigger goals: increasing the amount of solar power going into our electrical grid.
