The following are transcripts and comments of the specific programs written for Team P’s use in Advanced Research and Design Experimentation.
aR&D: Power Braking vs. Coasting Test Programs
1. Coasting
celerate(4,0,30,1); // used to get AEV up to speed of 30% motor capacity
motorSpeed(4,30); // used to maintain speed
goFor(5); // maintains speed for 5 seconds
brake(4); // shuts down all motors
~
This code was used to get the AEV up to speed then shut the fan blades down to allow the AEV to coast to a stop. We used this to get a base line of how far the AEV would need to coast to a stop.
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2. Power Braking
celerate(4,0,30,1); // used to accelerate AEV to 30% motor capacity
motorSpeed(4,30); // used to maintain speed
goFor(5); // maintains speed for 5 seconds
brake(4); // shuts off all motors
reverse(4); // reverses the rotation of motor blades
celerate(4,0,50,.2); // used to accelerate AEV to 50% motor capacity
motorSpeed(4,50); // used to maintain speed
goFor(.2); // maintains speed for .2 seconds
brake(4); //shuts down all motors
~
In this code the AEV was brought to speed then the motors shut off and instead of coasting to a stop, we modified the previous code to reversed the rotation of the motors and create thrust in the opposite direction. We modified the previous code rather than writing a new code so when we executed the program we would know by how much the power brake reduced the stopping distance.
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aR&D: Battery Testing
motorSpeed(4,25);
goFor(2);
motorSpeed(4,20);
goFor(8);
reverse(4);
motorSpeed(4,30);
goFor(1.5);
brake(4);
~
The battery test program sent basic speed and distance funtions to the Arduino motor to test the AEV’s movement for a short period back and forth along the laboratory track. This code remained constant across the multiple runs performed in this experiment, and the run number was compared to the voltage measured after each run, in order to draw important conclusions from the magnitude of the voltage degeneration from repeated motor functioning.