Autonomous electric go kart project

[mckriesch]

Hello Everyone,
I am new here as I was just assigned to this project for a design and research project in college. Just a little bit of background of what is going on for reference. Our goal is to build a go kart with sensors on it so that a human driver is not necessary. We want to be able to drive along a course, detect obstacles, and go around them while also communicating to another rear cart. I am not asking y'all questions regarding the autonomy. Instead, I am on the powertrain design team so batteries, controller, motor, steering as y'all probably already knew.

I am new to all this but have found this website very helpful and interesting and it has peaked a new interest. For this build, we do not need to go fast, no more than say 10 mph. We are using a small one seat go kart chassis that the university has provided us. I can get specs if needed. But anyways, on to the important part. I have done some research and have an idea of what I want to propose but wanted to run it by people who knew what they were talking about first. So here it goes.

For the motor, I want to use a 48 volt 100 watt Scooter motor.
http://www.pccmotor.com/48vo10wadrmo.html
For the controller, I was thinking this one: http://kellycontroller.com/kdz4820024v-48v200aseriespm-p-951.html
As far as batteries go, this will focus only on the engine not anything else included on the kart(sensors) so I was thinking one of two options: the first is a smaller battery at 12ah but is significantly lighter at 7.4 pounds each. The second is a 33ah but is significantly heavier at 24 pounds each. Of course, four batteries would be needed.
BATTERY 1: http://www.amazon.com/ExpertPower-EXP12120-Volt-Rechargeable-battery/dp/B00A82A2ZS
BATTERY 2:http://www.amazon.com/ExpertPower-Rechargeable-Cycle-Battery-EXP1233/dp/B00KQX5FPQ

Thank you for any guidance and help you can provide

 

[itsid]

welcome!

good thing, that 100W is a typo and you meant 1000W
(since the sensory units are likely lighter than a human you can even go lower than that with only 500W it should still be able to hit the targetspeed I guess
(little more than half the price)
but to be sure the 1000W my1020 will be fine.

controller... the kelly is good, no question, but you can have a chinese scooter controller specifically made for the my1020
(yiyun.. a company closely related to unitemotors [the mfg of the my1020 motors])

No need for deep cycle batteries!
even the cheapest controllers nowadays come with undervolt protection (keeping the battery rechargable)
So you never use the benefit of the deep cycle battery anyways

12Ah is a little bit low I guess, but I don't know how long that kart should run.. so maybe that's indeed enough.

'sid

 

[ghost civic]

how much do you think the autonomy gear will weigh?
My son has a razor drift kart. It is a small kart, and he is 50 pounds. The kart goes 14mph. It has a very small (250w I think) motor and runs on 24v. The kart might weigh 50 pounds, so that small motor can move 100 pounds on 24v. That kart has variable throttle...which could be operated with a standard 1/10 scale RC servo.
Just throwing the info on his kart out for reference. Id guess that as itsid said, a 500w setup would have no trouble moving the weight at the speed you require.

 

[mckriesch]

welcome!

good thing, that 100W is a typo and you meant 1000W
(since the sensory units are likely lighter than a human you can even go lower than that with only 500W it should still be able to hit the targetspeed I guess
(little more than half the price)
but to be sure the 1000W my1020 will be fine.

controller... the kelly is good, no question, but you can have a chinese scooter controller specifically made for the my1020
(yiyun.. a company closely related to unitemotors [the mfg of the my1020 motors])

No need for deep cycle batteries!
even the cheapest controllers nowadays come with undervolt protection (keeping the battery rechargable)
So you never use the benefit of the deep cycle battery anyways

12Ah is a little bit low I guess, but I don't know how long that kart should run.. so maybe that's indeed enough.

'sid

yes indeed the 100 watt was a typo. the kart still needs to be able to carry a human I think we will proceed with the 1000 watt. The concept is that you can get in it and it will take your where you want to go but we will have manual override option as well. And okay, I will look into the custom made controller. In reference to the battery, I was not aware of that so thank you. We will probably start with slightly bigger batteries but that was a good place to start. Thank you for your help

---------- Post added at 01:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:32 PM ----------

how much do you think the autonomy gear will weigh?
My son has a razor drift kart. It is a small kart, and he is 50 pounds. The kart goes 14mph. It has a very small (250w I think) motor and runs on 24v. The kart might weigh 50 pounds, so that small motor can move 100 pounds on 24v. That kart has variable throttle...which could be operated with a standard 1/10 scale RC servo.
Just throwing the info on his kart out for reference. Id guess that as itsid said, a 500w setup would have no trouble moving the weight at the speed you require.

The autonomy gear will not be very heavy but we still need to be able to carry a human. Thank you for the specs though as it will give me something for reference as I am new to all of this. Hadnt thought of the variable throttle but I will look into it. Thank you