There were two major proposes of Performance Test 2 for the engineering team. First, the team decided to reconstruct the AEV and changed the propeller configuration due to its high efficiency, therefore the team must test the performance of puller configuration and roundly estimate its performance in all situations. Second, the team decided to equip the AEV with a Tower Pro servo. The Tower Pro servo is used for controlling servo arm which could rotate from 0 to 180 degrees. The Tower Pro servo is for braking the AEV by rotating the servo arm to 90 degrees to get stuck with the front wheel. Once the front wheel stop rotating, the AEV will soon stop. The function servoRotate() is used for controlling servo motor.
Figure 1: Tower Pro Servo Motor SG90
The following video shows how the AEV reached the gate. This test failed due to the incorrect braking position.
Next two figures reveals the actual running data of one test of Performance Test 2.
Figure 2: Power V.S. Time
Figure 3: Power V.S. Distance
There are two phases in both plots. The first phase reveals the first half of the running, and the second phase shows how the AEV approached the cargo site. According to the plots, the team used the same power input for accelerating the AEV in both phases. Because of the limitation of time, the team decided to use the simplest coding strategy to accomplish the goal. The strategy is to accelerate AEV with a relatively low power input and once it reaches the destination, use servo motor to stop the AEV. And the servo motor worked pretty well.
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Appendix