Mattro GmbH: Electric Anywhere

The employees at the company Mattro in Schwaz, Austria, are realising the vision of electrically driven mobility in steep terrain, far from any paved roads. For the electrical portion, Mattro development engineers use EPLAN Electric P8 for designing the schematics and EPLAN Harness proD for the 3D design of wire harnesses. The program’s bidirectional data exchange with ECAD and MCAD systems enables the mechanical and electrical design engineers to work in parallel on the interchangeable battery systems and off-road vehicles. This ensures clean, complete documentation without any additional effort, eliminates notorious sources of error and enormously accelerates the development process at the same time.

When talking about electromobility, most people think about passenger vehicles, which is why the main criteria discussed are usually top speeds and range. In Schwaz, Austria, in the state of Tyrol, where the mountains are high and the terrain is rough, the engineers at Mattro are realising the vision of electrical-powered mobility in steep terrain, far from any paved roads.

Electromobility “Made in Tyrol”

The company constructs fully electric special vehicles with continuous track drives. The company originally began as a producer of all-terrain transporters with combustion engines, both with wheels and with caterpillar drives. “There wasn’t enough space for the normal drive train, and so the ‘Steinbock’ model was equipped with an electric drive train with wheel hub motors,” Marco Bauer explains. Bauer is the director of engineering at Mattro and, as the son of the company’s founder, has been involved with the company since its founding. “Shortly thereafter, we gained solid know-how in battery construction through a project involving a robot-supported exchangeable battery system for electric vehicles, to get around the problem of battery charging times.”

Today, Mattro is utilising this experience in three areas. Firstly, the Battery & Components division has a scalable exchangeable battery system for electric commercial vehicles from the company’s own in-house production. At the same time, on behalf of prestigious manufacturers such as Kässbohrer, Liebherr and Bosch, the company creates fully electric versions of existing special vehicles including hay loaders, snow groomers and excavators. Finally, Mattro’s Vehicles Division develops and builds fully electric off-road vehicles, including some models with approval for road use. To date more than three hundred vehicles have been manufactured and sold.

The company’s Ziesel model – a one-person, off-road-capable vehicle with a continuous track drive – first achieved renown in Germany when used in a lively racing competition on a popular TV game show. It’s now seen as an off-roader with a fun factor in winter tourism and is used as an equipment carrier and municipal services provider in the Alpine region. One of the current main vehicle products is the ROVO 2, a universal, all-electric drive system that runs on treads as a powerful, compact platform for individualised attachments. The ROVO 2 is used as a remote-controlled or autonomously driving vehicle on difficult or dangerous terrain, in agricultural applications, as a recovery and fire-fighting vehicle by fire departments or as a transportation vehicle for the military.

The Challenge of Electrical Engineering for Vehicles

“Fully electric off-road vehicles are enormously challenging, both mechanically as well as electrically,” Bauer says. “On top of this is the extremely limited space available in our vehicles and the usually very short period for realisation.” The mechanical and electrical designs therefore happen simultaneously based on an overall concept. The electrical components are first designed in the software department, with this information flowing directly into the creation of the schematics.

The Mattro development engineers create the schematics in EPLAN Electric P8, the leading software for electrical design. It was chosen for compatibility with customers and project partners, but also because its platform architecture enables data exchange with other programs, for instance the mechanical CAD. First, the connections and the wire cross-sections and colours are defined in EPLAN Electric P8. “Although database-based CAE software does support graphic, device-oriented development, it has a clear focus on panel building,” says Mattro Electric Designer Martin Segmehl. “In a vehicle, though, the electrical systems are structured completely differently, namely in a decentralised way and with wire harnesses between the individual devices.”