Executive Summary:
The AEV project that the team conducted on the past few labs used several methods of research and testing to the team’s design. During the labs, the team demonstrated skills in cooperation, brainstorming ideas, decision-making, documentation as well as the overall design process. Throughout the lab, an AEV has been created in order to obtain the development in such skills. Advanced Energy Vehicle, or simply known as AEV, is an autonomous, small, electric motor-driven, track-guided vehicle that the team have the ability over what modifications needs to be made which includes the orientation of the motor and whatever changes need to be modify on the code. The final objective is to develop an AEV that is able to travel on the monorail-track system and stop at the marked gate for 7 seconds. Then, the AEV will continue travel to pickup the R2D2 at the cargo area and bring it back to the starting point. The team needs to follow all the requirements while maintaining the most efficient energy consumption.
Throughout the labs, the following aspect show the team’s findings, progress, and implementation taken based on the several weeks of testing, analyzing, and developing. The team used several methods to obtain the research data. The team primarily focused heavily on the track-testing, where the team downloaded the Arduino codes to the AEV and the AEV was run on the track. After the code successfully executed, the EEPROM data was downloaded from the AEV and the team calculated the parameters used by the AEV. With this data, the team abled to test and compare the energy efficiency of several modifications to the Arduino codes or the AEV design itself. During the wind tunnel lab, the team able to determine the best propeller configuration that would produce the most efficient propeller to the AEV. The team decided to choose the 3030 pusher propeller since it has the highest advance ratio and larger diameter based on the data collected. The design process of the AEV consisted of several stages. During the first stage, the team focused on creating multiple design concepts and scoring methods to find the best final design. During Performance Test 1, the team tested the two best design concepts. X-base shape and T-Base shape AEV designs were built and then tested on the track. The team decided to proceed with the T-base shape design as it has lower efficiency compared to the X-shape. In Performance Test 2, two different Arduino codes were created based on the MCR and tested on the track to determine which code used the lowest energy consumption. The team made some tweaks on the code in order to minimize the energy consumption. The team tested several breaking mechanisms and decided to rely on coasting to break. The final test of the AEV resulted in 410.28 J of energy used and AEV mass of 0.233 kg. Thus, the energy mass ratio of the AEV was 1761 J/kg.
Recommendation for this lab includes a proper and specific planning for the team come up with on each particular lab session. Therefore, this will allow each team members to be more concise with their decision making and teamwork skills. The team realized that communications are the important skills in order for the team to come upon with an agreement.
Based on the final testing, further development needs to implemented on the code so that the AEV will be more consistent and uses the least amount of energy. This AEV project is important medium for the future engineers. It helps the team to develop teamwork skills, collecting and analyzing data through experimental research in-depth analysis of the overall design.
Project Schedule:
The CDR report in PDF can be found below: