Battery Testing

The battery testing lab is aimed at determining the relationship between the voltage of the battery, the number of test runs, and the relationship between the voltage of the battery and the distance traveled.

After each run, the voltage of the battery was recorded using a multi-meter. The distance that the AEV traveled was recorded using the MATLAB analysis tool. Then it was placed into excel to create two plots with data.

Figure 1: Battery Voltage(Volts) v. the Number of Runs

In Figure 1, shows that voltage decreased slightly in a linear relationship after every test run. Also, The voltage decreasing between 0.01 and 0.03 volts as the number of runs increases each time.

 

Figure 2: Distance Traveled(Meters) vs. Battery Voltage(Volts)

In Figure 2, there was no mathematical correlation between distance traveled and battery voltage. As the battery voltage decreases, the distance traveled by AEV does not consistently decrease as well, so we can not concludes that there is a relationship between voltage and distance traveled. However, the distance would likely decrease as the voltage decreases if the time of the trials and motor power increased.

Conclusion

  • As a consequence, the battery should be fully charged for more accurate results because the voltage will decrease as the number of runs increase. Even though we cannot claim that the distance traveled will decrease as the voltage decreases, there is a possibility that the distance will drop as the voltage becomes lower, which could compromise the efficiency and safety of the AEV.
  • A fully charged the battery can meet the control variable principle, which can increase the accuracy of our results.

 

Battery Voltage Testing Code 1

// Accelerate motor one from start to 0% power in 3 seconds
celerate(4,0,25,3);
// Run all motors at a constant speed (25% power) for 2 second.
motorSpeed(4,25);
goFor(2);
brake(4);