Motor Quantity

Due to the compact and light design of the AEV, the team decided it would be advantageous to test how well the vehicle could propel itself using only a single motor. Thus, the single motor variation of the design was tested three times, the double motor variation of the design was tested three ties as well, and then the data from the runs was compared.

SINGLE MOTOR

DOUBLE MOTOR

The testing proved that a single motor could indeed propel the AEV adequately. The program uploaded to the controller board commanded the AEV to travel 4 ft while running all motors at 70% power. When run in this manner, the single motor configuration took more time to complete the run, but only required 32 J to do so, whereas the double motor configuration took about 0.4 seconds less time to complete the run, but used about 41 J in doing so. In this instance, therefore, the single motor variation used about 78% of the energy used by the double motor configuration, and was therefore more energy efficient,

One limitation of this test is that the single motor variation of the AEV was not tested while pulling the caboose. It is possible that two motors would be needed here as the caboose would add a great deal of extra weight for the motors to propel. Thus, the team began to considered running only one motor when travelling towards the caboose (before picking it up), and then using both motors to pull the caboose down the track.