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PhD Thesis - Cranfield University

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Chapter 6<br />

CHAPTER 6<br />

HARDWARE DESCRIPTION<br />

Hofstadter's Law states that,“ It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account<br />

Hofstadter's Law.” - Douglas R. Hofstadter<br />

A considerable effort of this research programme has been dedicated towards the<br />

development of a test vehicle to serve as an experimental setup for power and energy<br />

management research. This chapter describes the experimental vehicle and the<br />

corresponding energy storage systems. Starting form a pure battery driven vehicle, the energy<br />

system was then augmented with the addition of an ultracapacitor bank. Apart from<br />

manufacturer’s information, there is very limited experimental data on ultracapacitor field-<br />

testing. As such, the vehicle provided a means to obtain unbiased empirical data to<br />

substantiate research claims and also to serve as a test platform for further work.<br />

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