Oxford Brookes University Case Study

Accelerating Engineering Education

Tektronix gave a team of student engineers the tools they needed to build an electric racecar, accelerating their knowledge of engineering. Applying the principles learned in the classroom to a hands-on project gave them valuable experience to gain an edge in the industry.

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The Customer Challenge

Founded in 1999 in the UK, Oxford Brookes University has a strong legacy in automotive and motorsport research and education.

They encourage their students to practice and apply their growing knowledge of engineering in extra-curricular programs like Oxford Brookes Racing, which builds racecars from scratch and races their creations against other universities.

For many years, their students built a variety of combustion motor racecars, but in the 2019/2020 season they decided to build their first completely electric vehicle.

The problem was that creating an electric racecar required a variety of test and measurement tools to optimize and validate their designs. Developing a cutting-edge electric racecar requires cutting edge tools. And, since the engineers utilizing the new equipment the most would be students, Oxford Brookes hoped to reduce their learning curve with reliable, user-friendly features and interfaces.

The Solution

Tektronix provided the Oxford Brookes Racing team with a robust and versatile bench of test and measurement equipment, including:

• 200 MHz 3 Series Mixed Domain Oscilloscope
• Compact, portable spectrum analyzer
• 25 MHz arbitrary function generator
• 7½-digit graphical sampling digital multimeter
• High power, three-channel programmable power supply

With these and other high-end tools, Oxford Brookes’ engineering students can accurately and efficiently test and validate the prototyped electrical system concepts for their electric racecar. Tektronix’s modern and intuitive user interfaces help students spend less time learning the equipment and more time pushing both their skills and their designs to the limits of their potential.

In addition to supporting the students building their first electric racecar, this new equipment also enhances the research capabilities of the engineering program’s ongoing research related to advanced energy storage, applied controls, and electro-mechanical innovation 

Products, Software, and Services Provided

Bench Configuration

Hardware	Description
	MDO3024 Mixed Domain Oscilloscope, 200 MHz, 2.5GS/S For affordable, reliable, high-accuracy signal measurements
	RSA306B compact and portable Spectrum Analyzer For High-fidelity, low noise spectrum analysis
	AFG1022 Arbitrary Function Generator, 25MHz, 125 MS/s, 14-bit For flexible, efficient waveform generation
	Keithley DMM7510: 7½-Digit Graphical Sampling Multimeter A precise, high-resolution digitizer
	2230G High Power, 3 Channel Programmable Power Supply A compact, 3-channel power supply

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