Observation from Final Performance Test
The Final Performance Test featured the AEV accomplishing a series of tasks on the AEV track while stimulating a journey from its original destination to its intended destination, hooking up with a caboose (passenger) and making the return trip back to where it started without falling off the track or evoking any safety penalties. Overall, the three runs for this tent delivered a consistent performance in its power output as well as energy efficiency as shown in the graph below. For example, the Final cost for one of the runs which had 317.893 Joules of energy sued was $606, 025.50 with 0 safety penalties. As for the efficiency of the AEV was measured in time vs speed and energy usage for these final runs. Furthermore, the code used in MATLAB AEV Analysis tool varied significantly from the original, even though the functions reverse, goFor, goToRelativePosition, motorSpeed and celebrate are still used from the beginning, there are slight changes in the numbers placed into the program. Variation in the code consists of adjusting the goToRelativePosition, a different third number for celebrate function, battery power set a higher percentage, as well as a lot of code that was added after Performance Test 1 for the AEV to complete tasks and run the whole circuit eventually.
The AEV consumes around 320J for the full run in 50s. The time used without break is 29s and the energy consumed per mark is 31J. From the following figure it can been seen that the AEV consumed lots of energy when it use reverse to brake. The AEV’s speed is fast, but the energy it consumed is comparatively large and the team need to focus on the efficiency of the AEV and methods to decrease the energy consumption in the further development.
Figure.1:Final Performance Test Time vs Power
Total Cost of the Run
Figure.2 : Total Cost of AEV
From figure above it can be seen that the AEV doesn’t have any customize parts and the capital cost of AEV is small, only $157,080, and the time cost ranges from $108,000 to $133,000. But the energy cost is large, which increases the total cost to around $570,000.