An Innovative Catamaran Design using Abertax Online Battery Management.

An Innovative Catamaran Design using Abertax  Online Battery Management.

Following the success of the traditional electric boat, a team of experts from the University supported by Abertax , designed and built a Solar Catamaran. Professor Joseph Cilia who forms part of the Department of Industrial Electrical Power Conversion at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Malta, is in charge of this project which is being sponsored by a number of interested parties.  

The Catamaran is designed to run from Solar Energy . It has  a Fuel Cell on board that  assists the Photovoltaic Energy in the case of cloudy weather. The catamaran is powered by 6 High Quality Photovoltaic panels supplied by IBC Solar.  Two sets of  24V 100Ahr batteries are used for storage of energy. The Abertax online battery management unit, which was presented at the ELBC conference in Istanbul last September, is here used, to manage and ensure that battery energy is available to keep the boat running at all times. Apart from the necessary battery information, it also provides the position via a GPRS signal to the internet. This patent pending technology, is a very useful tool and will be used to study the performance of the catamaran while running. It is also intended to incorporate an autopilot in the future.

This project is still in progress and during this year the catamaran performance will be tested and the results will be published. For further details or sponsorship please contact Professor Joseph Cilia below.

TQM Research Project

Professor Joseph Cilia  (Project leader)

Professor Charles Pule    

Mr Charles Azzopardi  (Project manager)

Ing KD Merz

Ing Malcolm  Tabone

Ing Ian Busutil

Mr Donald Cassar

Contact:

Email:  j.cilia@abertax.com / jcilia@eng.um.edu.mt

Mob:    00356 99252393