Known as STORM Eindhoven, the 23 students set off earlier this month to circumnavigate the world on the two e-bikes they built as part of their courses at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands.
They plan to ride 26,000km in 80 days, an average of 325km a day. The student-designed batteries in the e-bikes can carry a charge of 25kWh and provide a range of 380km.
Storm Trooper: The STORM Eindhoven motorcycle is being used on a 80-day round-the-world tour.
Cohda is helping to sponsor the event by providing two of its MK5 on-board units, its latest vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) model.
“Cohda’s MK5 on-board units allow real-time communication to ensure the motorbikes perform according to design and meet this demanding schedule,” said Cohda Wireless vice-president of business development Bernd Luebben.
The Cohda units will also be used in V2V and vehicle-to-infrastructure demonstrations in cities including Shanghai where Cohda has vehicle-to-anything (V2X) units installed.
The Dutch trial was not about safety, which is the usual underpinning for V2X technology, said Cohda Wireless chief executive Paul Gray.
“What we are doing here is enabling all the telemetry from the motorcycle which is then shared with the support vehicles.
“That has a lot of applications in terms of electric vehicles because you want to have access to telemetry so you can monitor the performance of the bike, what the battery health is and things like that, service information,” Mr Gray told GoAuto.
Mr Gray said the installation of the technology on a motorcycle was more difficult than on a car because of the harsher operating environment.
“There are more demands. Size and weight are key. You have less options for placing the unit so you have to be careful with that.
“And, it’s obvious being an electric motorcycle, but power consumption is of critical importance as well.”
He said the Cohda technology could also be used to communicate with infrastructure so that a central server could alter the configuration of autonomous vehicles that are out on the road to optimise their battery life or lead them to a recharge station.
It could help electric vehicles conserve their on-board charge by incorporating them into a ‘Green Wave’ style of traffic management that advises vehicles on the speed at which they should travel to catch the next green light, thereby avoiding unnecessary acceleration.
“That is going to be key for electric vehicles to maximise their battery life by avoiding stop/start operation.”
Mr Gray said the Dutch students would be demonstrating the V2X technology at Tongji University in Shanghai, where Cohda and its chip-set partner, NXP of the US, have installed some equipment.
“We are starting to see a number of customers in China and this whole V2X area is starting to generate some interest there and we are quite interested to see what happens in that market as well.”
By Ian Porter
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