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Week of 06/18 - 06/25

The group focused on continuing to test the Roadway System.

  • Conduct multiple trials on the solar power rating.

  • Conduct multiple trials in rain and no rain conditions.

Group


Testing Solar Panel Rating

As a group, we tested the rating of the solar panel. This was done by setting the system outdoors for a 6- hour. Then we were able to measure the open circuit voltage, the short circuit current and calculate the open circuit power for our system. The power was calculated by . The conditions of the day a so and with tested was on a sunny with partial cloudy day. The first photo below will show the actual rating for the solar panel below in Jeremy's column are the charts of the readings received from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM of that day.



Live Roadway Testing


Some instances of our live rain testings are shown below. We began the testing by holding an umbrella over the sign so the rain sensor would not detect water. The posted speed limit for the area is 55 mph. Once we uncovered the speed limit sign to make all the sensors accessible to the weather conditions, the speed limit dropped by 5 mph. This lines up with one of the conditions listed on the flow chart that will decrease the speed by 5 mph when rain is detected.


The video below demonstrates the monitoring procees of the sensor values as well as the outcome of the sensor variables. The computer on the left is used to monitor the different voltage outcomes that we recieve from the sensors. The voltage values change depending on the atmospheric levels. As the voltage reaches the threshold set in the atmospheric conditons program, it will trigger the changes for the speed limit. This video shows an example of one of the conditions we had while testing. As you can see from the video, it is raining conditions and low traffic. Below is the output from the serial monitor that show the system is reading that the weather conditions are rain as well as low traffic


The atmospheric conditions program is ran on the secondary Arduino. The second Arduino is programmed to communicate to the main Arduino. Once the secondary Arduino has reached a threshold is sends either a 0, 1, or 2 over to the main Arduino which then determines the case of the output.


Once the output value reaches the secondary Arduino and the case is determined, the speed value will change based off the case. As shown above, the default speed limit was set at 55 mph. When the voltage values were passed to the main Arduino, it triggered the case to lower 5 mph.


Destany:


The serial monitor screenshot below shows the transition of the speed limit before rain is detected and after rain is detected. Although the other sensor variables were not triggered, the variables will continue to display current status updates to verify changes have not occurred. As shown in the image below, the default speed limit began at 55 mph. As the system verified the conditions, it was determined that the temperature is 77 degrees F, there is no rain, wind is below threshold, it was daylight, and there was low traffic conditions. When the sensor detected rainfall, the speed limit decreased to 50 mph. Traffic also began to pick up which also triggered the traffic outcome to change as well from low traffic to high traffic.



I continually monitored the sensor output to determine verify any change that was made was accurate. This information is being collected in order to create charts once enough information has been gathered to provide percent error along with accuracy amounts.


Below is data collected for the same instance of rainy conditions when the traffic was low.


Jeremy:

I constructed data charts based off the group work that was completed this week. Below is the explanation of the data and how it was calculated.


The power was calculated by Voltage (V) * Current (I). The conditions of the day was sunny with partial cloudy day. The charts of the readings for the solar panel received from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM of that day compared to the ratings.


The figure below is displaying the open circuit power that is calculated by using the open voltage and short circuit obtained below. The maximum and minimum calculated were 15.69W and 7.76W, respectively.

The next characteristic examined was the short circuit current for the solar panel. During the 6-hours period, the solar panel was tested on its short circuit current in parallel to testing the voltage. This was done in order to gather readings as close to each other as possible. The maximum and minimum readings observed were 707.9 mA and 423.9 mA, respectively.

The solar panel has a maximum power rating of 20W, a short current of 1.23A and open voltage of 21.42V. The characteristics associated with the solar panel were tested on a partly cloudy day with the solar panel under a 6-hour period. The graph of the open voltage can be seen below where it reached a peak of 23.5V and a low of 18.3V


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