Hydro Motion Team in 2023

The year of the Hydro Motion Team 2023 has finished! In the beginning of July, they went to Monaco to participate in the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge 2023 and achieved a very good result: they became World Champions! The race consisted of three challenges: manoeuvrability, endurance, and speed. Aurora, as the boat was named, foiled stable, even in the waves of Monaco.

The team achieved a second place in the manoeuvrability challenge. The three pilots needed to sail a predetermined route through the harbour around some buoys as fast as possible. They practiced a lot and Aurora was very manoeuvrable, since the propellor can rotate 90 degrees in both directions. On the second day the team came first in the endurance challenge. In this four-hour challenge, the boats had to sail the longest distance possible. Since Aurora sails on hydrogen, it could sail much further than the other battery powered boats. Halfway during the challenge, the conditions on the water became so rough that the team decided to come back into the harbour. However, the boat already sailed a much longer distance than the competitors, so the win was secured. On the last day, the team sailed to the starting line for the speed race. Unfortunately, they found out that there were some technical problems, so they could not participate. The high waves were too rough, the boat was not designed for this. However, the team scored the most points overall and became world champions in Monaco!

The electrical system of the boat consists of nine PCBs. The most important one is the EMS PCB, which is essentially the board computer. It controls all systems based on user and sensor inputs. Secondly, there is a dashboard PCB for receiving the inputs from knobs and controlling the feedback LED’s. Thirdly, the steering PCB, which is embedded in the steer itself, receives the inputs from the buttons on the steer for velocity, acceleration, and height control setpoints. Then there is the cooling PCB, which controls all fans, cooling pumps, and bilge pumps in the boat. This PCB had to handle most power, since the cooling pumps are powerful and take a lot of current. Finally, there are five sensor PCBs. The design of these PCBs is the same, the only differences are the values of the resistive dividers since sensors work on different voltages. These PCBs receive values from all kinds of sensors, such as pressure from the hydrogen tanks or the height of the boat in the water. The PCBs communicate via CAN, so all PCBs can see all the data that is transferred in the boat. The nice thing about the PCB division is that control is centralised. The EMS PCB makes the decisions, and the other PCBs only turn on- and off components based on the input from the EMS and send data back from these systems.