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Driving at the Speed of Sunlight

31 July 2000

    July 2000 - Who hasn't dreamed of being able to drive virtually forever, 
sailing past gas stations without stopping for fuel? By providing funding, 
test and measurement hardware, and technical support, Keithley Instruments has 
been helping the University of Michigan's College of Engineering in Ann Arbor 
explore those possibilities by sponsoring MaizeBlaze, a solar race car designed 
and built entirely by the  University's students.  Keithley Instruments, a 
gold-level sponsor of the MaizeBlaze team, is a leading manufacturer of 
electronic test and measurement instrumentation.

    The MaizeBlaze team finished in ninth place in the 1999 World Solar 
Challenge. The race covered more than 3000 kilometers (1,864 miles) through 
the Australian outback from Darwin to Adelaide. In addition to financial 
support, Keithley contributed test and measurement equipment the team used 
in evaluating the solar cells that powered the car. The team also employed 
Keithley's instruments for telemetry purposes, collecting data on operating 
parameters such as battery voltages, temperatures, motor output, etc. This 
information was then sent by radio modem to the team's strategists to help 
them get the best performance from the car during the race itself.

Equipment Saved Thousands in Evaluation Costs

    Eric Beaser, interim project manager for the race team, notes, "Keithley 
donated a Model 2420 High Current SourceMeter® instrument and three Model 
2000 digital multimeters, which we used to evaluate the electrical 
characteristics of various types of solar cells and charting their 
performance. This allowed us to optimize the configuration of the cells on 
the car, increasing the amount of available power and making us go faster. 
The Keithley test equipment saved us tens of thousands of dollars in 
evaluation costs. In the past, we'd buy solar cells and then send them off 
to Sandia National Laboratories for evaluation.  Eventually, it dawned on 
us that we could do this ourselves with the right equipment. In addition to 
the instruments, we've received tremendous support from Keithley's 
Applications Department in setting up our test system and writing the 
application to run it."

    Keithley's sponsorship of the University of Michigan's Solar Car Team is 
only one facet of the company's on-going support for education in electrical 
engineering, physics and related disciplines. Other company-sponsored educational 
programs include donations of instrumentation and engineering services to 
the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University in 
Tallahassee. Keithley has endowed a chair in the Department of Electrical 
Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  
In addition to a Keithley chair in Management Technology at Case Western 
Reserve University in Cleveland, Keithley supports Case's Center for Automation 
and Intelligent Systems Research, and is a sponsor of the school's Electronics 
Design Center. Keithley's Academic Discount Program provides significant  
discounts for purchases of instrumentation for academic laboratories.