A measurement setup for electric bicycles powered from renewable energy sources

Abstract

In this paper a measurement system for a pedalassist rickshaw is described. It has been designed and realized with the purpose of a deep analysis of operating time, range and general performance of the prototype vehicle. The three-wheel velocipede under test, developed in the SDES laboratory of the University of Palermo, is equipped with two battery packs, and a photovoltaic panel which is used to recharge one of the packs at a time. To further improve the autonomy of this mean, a fuel cell will be added as a power source, whose consequent improvement in performance could be easily investigated by the presented measurement setup. An Arduino board has been employed to receive and store all collected data into a microSD card, allowing a convenient accessibility of all gathered information.