The car aiming to beat the world land speed record, Bloodhound SSC, is being unveiled to the public today at an event in London’s Canary Wharf.
The vehicle is the result of eight years of research, design and manufacture, involving over 350 companies and universities. Vision distributor, Stemmer Imaging, has supplied a number of vision systems for the project, including cameras fitted onboard the vehicle and those used to test components during manufacture.
The 13.5m streamliner, which uses jet and rocket motors to produce approximately 135,000 thrust horse power, is more than nine times more powerful than all the cars in Formula 1 combined. The current land speed record stands at 763mph, but the Bloodhound SSC team are aiming to reach 1,000mph when they attempt to break the record next year in South Africa.
Twelve cameras are built into the vehicle, including two inside the cockpit. Three compact Adlink EOS embedded vision systems installed on the vehicle were supplied by Stemmer Imaging. Each system can accept and record four independent HD feeds from cameras and each recorder also provides a single H.264 video stream from any of its four inputs for live transmission to the control centre.
In addition, Stemmer Imaging supplied an Optronis high-speed camera and a UV camera from JAI, both of which were used to make measurements of the rocket plume during testing last year.
The thrust for the Bloodhound SSC is delivered by a Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet engine and supercharged Jaguar V8 engine which pump oxidizer into a Nammo rocket. The car has three separate braking systems, seven fire extinguishers and 500 sensors, so engineers will know exactly how it is performing during each high speed run.
The car has been created by a team of Formula 1 and aerospace experts with assistance from the Army’s Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and technicians from the RAFs 71 Squadron who built the 2m high tail fin, required for stability at high speed.
Along with building a land speed record breaking car, the Bloodhound project's mission is to inspire a future generation about science, technology, engineering and mathematics. More than 100,000 children in the UK have attended Bloodhound events and universities involved with the project have seen record numbers apply to study engineering.
Ahead of racing in South Africa in 2016, the team will conduct runway tests at Newquay Aerohub next Easter.
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