The Department of Industrial Electrical Power Conversion at the University of Malta has designed, built and commissioned an electric boat for trips around Malta and Gozo. Dr Joseph Cilia together with his research team started working on this project in 2005 and the first prototype boat was presented in 2007.
The boat is equipped with the latest state of the art technology. The outboard motor is powered from a brushless 3 phase motor. Battery and position information is collected from a battery management unit and the data is transmitted via bluetooth to a mobile that is used to display the battery status and control the on board hi-fi audio system.
A number of local and foreign industrial partners were actively involved in this development. The boat was built by Tar-Ratal Marine Crafts, the Battery Management and wireless transmission by Abertax Quality Ltd, while the charger and pillar were supplied by Mentzer Electronics Gmbh.
A number of technical papers were presented at international conferences worldwide and the work was awarded the
Best Paper Award at the European Lead Acid Battery Conference held in Warsaw in September 2008.
The project was sponsored by the Ministry of Resources and Rural Affairs, the University of Malta, the Malta Tourism authority, Middlesea Valletta life and Abertax Quality Ltd.
The University is presently investing in the building of a laboratory equipped with the latest technology for research and development on electrical transport. This will be used for both undergraduate and postgraduate students to carry out research on electric transport and other methods of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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20 May 2013
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