Last year, 16 students from Germany’s University of Bochum began working on a project to develop and build a solar-powered off-road vehicle in an effort to cross the Simpson Desert in Australia in record time.

The team consisted of students from electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and mechatronics, who wanted to create the so-called SolarBuggy to be able to endure the toughest desert conditions without problems.

To meet these heavy demands, the team chose to power the buggy from solar panels on the roof, and use chainflex cables from igus, which are ideally suited for the journey’s thermal and mechanical loads. The cables connect the buggy’s driving controls and electric motor, and are used for internal wiring as well.

“The cables have sufficient cross section and correspondingly high current carrying capacity,” said Kay Bollerhof, member and spokesperson of the university project. “They are also shielded, provide DC and AC voltage and have high electromagnetic resistance to external influences. As they are very tough, they are ideally suited to the thermal and mechanical stress in Australia.”

Though the SolarBuggy required insulated cables, igus offers the chainflex servo cables with or without an inner jackets. They are also available as flame-retardant, coolant-resistant, oil-resistant, cold-flexible or twist-able. Tested in the igus laboratory for millions of cycles in e-chains, they provide guaranteed safety against failure. The servo cables are available for all well-known drive manufacturers.

“The positive and prompt response from igus and the timely delivery convinced us,” Bollerhof said. “We were therefore able to meet our technical challenges quickly.”

The SolarBuggy is intended to travel across the Australian desert in the spring of 2018.