Purpose:
Create a prototype Advanced Electric Vehicle (AEV) for the Smart City of Columbus in order to transport supplies and people safely and efficiently from one region to another.
Approach:
Group O had to learn the preliminary research and development criteria in order to have the proper knowledge to begin working with the AEV components and software. Each member had to properly know how the hardware and software interacted for the AEV: the arduino, the arduino code, reflectance sensors, and how to use the proper data analysis tools on MATLAB. Each individual team member brainstormed their own design, using concept screening and scoring matrices to determine which concept designs would be pushed to advanced research and development.
The team then proceeded to advanced research and development, where they decided to analyze two potential factors in the project: battery consumption and track variance. Using controlled experiments provided in the labs, tests were run to determine if battery consumption effected the AEV during each test, and if the tracks varied from each other, and from classroom to classroom.
Performance tests were then run on the constructed AEV designs, each performance test with a different objective to observe which AEV prototype performed best. The team had to edit the code for each test and decide on a design to push forward to the final performance test. Group O decided to go with a direct drive AEV model; an AEV in which one motor was attached to the wheel to directly spin it. Cost, time, and energy consumption were factors considered to determine if the final AEV design was efficient and successful. The direct drive AEV proved to be a success. Data, design concepts and sketches, and discussions of the process can be found throughout the specific division’s web-page via tabs.
