creating a VI to monitor battery consumption of electric vehicle. Possible?

[Team7]

Hi,

Im fairly new to this forum but have used it in the past. I am a thrid year university student and for my 3rd year project i am considering creating a program that can monitor and display the battery/power consumption of an electric vehicle over a mileage range. Can this be done done by creating a VI? I have some knowledge of Labview and have some experience using it but have not created anything as complex as what i am proposing. All replies will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[altenbach]

Yes, LabVIEW aill allow you to do this. In addition to a VI, you also need appropriate measurement hardware, of course.

[RTSLVU]

You mean like Watts per mile or Watt Hours per mile or Amp Hours per mile?

I have been doing a lot of battery testing recently and have ran into these measurements a lot lately.

Battery capacity is measured in Amp Hours and energy consumption is generally measured in Watt hours.

So basically you would need someway to measure distance traveled and Amp or Watt hours consumed.

Distance could be easy as a counter attached to the speedometer.

Energy is a bit sticky, and comes down to how accurately you want to measure it.

The easiest, most accurate, and expensive way would be to use a power meter with and amp/watt hour integration function that you could poll at regular distances.

The next best thing would be to simply measure the current (and voltage for Wh since you are dealing with DC you could do a simple W=V*I calculation) at regular intervals and integrate over time it in software. Then poll this at regular distances.

This sounds like a fun project and you could really end up with a useful device in the end.

[Team7]

Hi,

Thanks for your answers to my question. Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I have been busy carrying out general research into batteries used in electric vehicles and the demands they are under due to the various features of the vehicle e.g.. Entertainment systems, heated windows etc.

To clarify my project, as I have just confirmed it with my tutor. I will be looking into the effect of the various features of the EV on the battery power i.e. the power they take away from the battery. Therefore, I will be looking into how these things, e.g.. stereo, A/C, sat nav, work in conjunction with the battery. I will be carrying out some calculations on the power consumption and then hopefully creating a  VI, which will provide me with the power usage results that I can compare my calculated results with. At the moment, I am looking into the different types of batteries used by manufacturers to decide on which one I will focus on. I am heading towards lithium-ion, as used in the Nissan Leaf.

Hope this clears up what i initially meant.

Cheers