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Over the past 15 years the TU Delft Solar Boat Team has been creating boats that are powered by solar energy. Last year this same team made the switch to hydrogen and managed to create the world’s first flying hydrogen boat. This year we are committed to the use of hydrogen as energy storage and are now building a boat around the purpose of using hydrogen.

Our boat will exist out of a lot of parts which all need to be connected. A lot of the integration needed to combine these components is done through Printed Circuit Boards. These PCBs vary from Energy Management Systems to a Steering Wheel or to the Height Control of our boat.

To control the power flow, temperatures, energy inside our buffer and many other energy-based components we have our Low Power and High-Power Energy Management Systems. They are the brains of the boat and are also the biggest PCBs that we have on the boat. Next to that we also have the Dashboard, which is a PCB that interfaces a lot of information to the co-pilot. It is connected to many switches and LEDs that are used to control and review the boat.

We also have a PCB inside the steering wheel and next to the display that is behind the steering wheel. They will interface with the pilot who can control everything from the speed of the boat to the channel for the communication and who can see information like the power of the boat or the amount of hydrogen inside the tanks.

At last, we also have a specialized PCB that is made for our active height control. Our boat uses three wings to lift out of the water and stay stabilized. This stabilization is done through these PCBs. They use a Gyrometer and a distance sensor to measure the exact orientation of the boat and to continuously keep controlling the wings. This way, the boat stays safe for the pilots and doesn’t crash into the water.

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In the picture the first iterations of our PCBs, created by Eurocircuits, can be seen on the testbench. The coming months we will be testing, reiterating, and implementing those PCBs into our boat so we have full functionality. This means we will be ordering many more PCBs from Eurocircuits and their help is greatly appreciated!

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