Energy Optimization

Lastly Team B was tasked with further optimizing the vehicle by making little tweaks to the vehicle to make it more energy efficient. To do this they took the final code and design from the previous optimizations and changed very little things to make the energy consumption lower. They would analyze the data collected from the AEV to determine if the changes they made was a improvement.

Final Design of AEV

This was the design that Team B used. It is the design with the drive wheel only. They used this because it was the best performing design that they concluded from the Design Optimization section. After choosing the design they ran, extracted, and analyzed the data from each AEV run. They did three runs total.

 

 

Graph 1: Average Energy Consumption of Run 1

This was the graph created from the first run that Team B did. The average rate of energy usage is 6.5655 joules per meter, which can be seen in the graph above. During this run they saw that the drive wheel was not running as fast as it was before, so they adjusted the support arm a little to lower the resistance on the drive wheel. The energy usage is very linear in this test.

 

Graph 2: Average Energy Consumption of Run 2

This was the graph created from the second run that Team B did. The average rate of energy usage is 5.1872 joules per meter, which can be seen in the graph above. This run went better than the first run because the team fixed what was making the AEV go slower than it usually does. Therefore, the energy use went down. The energy usage is relatively consistent with the average energy usage other than in a few places where it is higher and lower.

Graph 3: Average Energy Consumption of Run 3

Lastly, this is the graph that was made from the data from the third and final run that Team B did. The average rate of energy that was used during this run was 5.0838 joules per meter, which is shown in the graph above. The run was the best out of the three runs. The energy used during this run was relatively linear to the average energy consumed throughout the whole run.

 

In conclusion, in the final performance test we had the first run which is an outlier to the rest of the data that came in at 6.5655 joules per meter. The second run which came in at 5.1872 joules per meter, and our final run; which was the most energy conserving run; at 5.0838 joules per meter. This is very efficient and the energy optimization experiment was a success.

Code Used:

Refer here for information on command functions.

 

Code Explanation
 motorSpeed(4,30);

 goToAbsolutePosition(280);

 motorSpeed(4,20);

 goToAbsolutePosition(295);

 brake(4);

 First sets all motor power 30 percent. Then the motor runs until the vehicle counts 280 marks from its starting position. After that all motors are set to 20 percent power. Then the motors runs until the vehicle counts 295 marks from its starting position. Then brakes.
 motorSpeed(4,0);

 goFor(8);

 This sets all of the motors power to 0 percent and ran for 8 seconds. This makes sure that the vehicle stops for 8 seconds before continuing.
 motorSpeed(4,30);

 goToAbsolutePosition(576);

 motorSpeed(4,25);

 goToAbsolutePosition(614);

 motorSpeed(4,15);

 goToAbsolutePosition(646);

 brake(4);

 Sets all motors power to 30 percent. Then the motors runs until the vehicle counts 576 marks from its starting position. After that the motors are set to 25 percent power. Then the motors runs until the vehicle counts 614 marks from its starting position. After that all motors are set to 15 percent power. Then the motors runs until the vehicle counts 646 marks from the starting position. Then brakes.
 motorSpeed(4,0);

 goFor(5);

 reverse(4);

 This sets all of the motors power to 0 percent and ran for 5 seconds. This makes sure that the vehicle stops for 5 seconds before continuing. Then all motors are reversed.
 motorSpeed(4,30);

 goToAbsolutePosition(420);

 motorSpeed(4,20);

 goToAbsolutePosition(400);

 brake(4);

 Sets all motors power to 30 percent. Then the motor runs until the vehicle counts 420 marks from its starting position. After that the motors are set to 20 percent power. Then the motor runs until the vehicle counts 400 marks from its starting position. Then brakes.
 motorSpeed(4,0);

 goFor(9);

 This sets all of the motors power to 0 percent and ran for 9 seconds. This makes sure that the vehicle stops for 9 seconds before continuing
 motorSpeed(4,30);

 goToAbsolutePosition(105);

 brake(4);

 Sets all motors power to 30 percent. Then the motor runs until the vehicle counts 105 marks from its starting position. Then brakes.