Arizona State University - Smoothwater Electric Outboard Team

(Glen Canyon Project)

 

The ASU Glen Canyon electric outboard team is a group of students from Arizona State University’s (ASU) college of Technology and Innovation. With the assistance of Prof. Darryl Morrell and Prof. Narciso Macia our team has been selected to design and test an alternative electric motor propulsion system for our outfitter boats in the smooth water section of the glen canyon river. It is an exciting time for GCROA and the universities that are involved in this project. With GCROA on our side we are very motivated to be at the design front of new alternative energies that create a cleaner future for our beautiful Glen Canyon river and the world.

Our team was organized as a continuation of one of last years existing projects. Our team has set goals to find the deficiencies and existing problems with the current electric motor system and either troubleshoot them or replace them. Due to system problems with the controller from last years project we will decide whether to troubleshoot the existing controller or to buy a new one. Our main objective in this project is to operate the existing, water cooled, 3 phase AC motor with a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) controller/inverter. This will most likely involve the design and programming of a microcontroller or PLC device.

This system will be designed so that a boat operator will be able to control the motor at different speeds in forward and in reverse. In addition to the controller, we will test the operation and controls of the existing 3 phase AC motor to measure speed, response time, voltage, current, frequency, and temperature, etc. One of the batteries might need to be repaired due to a fire incident from last year. For this reason the batteries will be redesigned for stability and safety. As a team we will be working with the ASU Glen Canyon Smoothwater Hydrid team on the redesign of the lower unit and other power sources to the electric motor. Once we have completed the high priority tasks of this project we plan to improve our system by adding control gauges for the boat operators so that they can see and record engine performances.


Our team of students:

Tyler Wallace, EET
Melissa Maggard, EET
Adam Reynolds, EET
Ryan Schaumburg, EGR

 

Mid-Year Presentation