It was vitally important that members of the Sunswift Racing team were able to communicate with each other at all times. A high-quality radio was required for the solar car in particular. This did not include noise dampening, as ensuring the quality on the radios was critical for making split decisions and calls.
The team also needed a long-range radio to be able to communicate between the various convoy vehicles supporting the race car, which were constantly on the move and often had large distances between them. In addition, they needed a radio capable of communicating from the escort vehicle back to Sydney to allow the support team to be involved.
Richard Hopkins, University of New South Wales (UNSW) Professor of Practice and Sunswift Racing Team Principal, adds: “We also required channel encryption so that our internal communication would be as kept secure and clear, without a fear of other teams listening in or attempting to communicate on the same frequency.
“The comms also had to be multi-channel, as due to the separation of communication and the priority of certain vehicles such as the scout car, we needed radios that could be given speaking priority and be set to switch channels easily.”
Once these radio requirements became apparent, Sunswift realised that its existing equipment would not be suitable for multi-channel communication. Nor would it cope with the distances between vehicles on the road, which can sometimes be up to 5-10km. The team approached Hytera partner D2N Technology Solutions to investigate potential solutions to these problems.