Humanless cab - battery simulation

[caneryikar]

    Hey folks, first let me say great community you have here, keep it up!
In our institute we are trying to simulate human-less transportation. They can be cabs on either railway or road.
we will use arduino cars to simulate first. Then if the project succeeds we will have real ones
I am the one who will simulate the battery consumption. let's say like if 3 person is onboard battery will be discharged 100mA/min or no person on board 65mA/min, or the road conditions (uphill-downhill) and so on.
I wanna simulate 2250mAh li-po battery, to give estimated time, like computers, cell phones. And if battery is low the car needs to go to station for charging.

I know little bit of arduino.  I was thinking connecting buttons and lcd to arduino then when buttons are pressed multipliers on the formula will change.
And the program will count down from 2250 till reserved power ~150mAh


do you guys think this is feasible or do you have any sample codes?
any help is appreciated.

btw i just realized that i did not introduced myself, I am studying computer science/engineering. 3rd year student

Caner

[PeterH]

I am the one who will simulate the battery consumption. let's say like if 3 person is onboard battery will be discharged 100mA/min or no person on board 65mA/min, or the road conditions (uphill-downhill) and so on.

Given that you're a third year student and taking responsibility for managing battery discharge rates, it's rather alarming that you don't seem to know the units for current. 

It's feasible to simulate a battery discharge as you describe, but I don't see the point. If that's all you want, you might as well write a PC application that prints down a sequence of numbers from 100% to 0%. Wouldn't it be more meaningful to demonstrate that you can measure the actual discharge of a real battery and track the battery charge level accurately?

[caneryikar]

I am the one who will simulate the battery consumption. let's say like if 3 person is onboard battery will be discharged 100mA/min or no person on board 65mA/min, or the road conditions (uphill-downhill) and so on.

Given that you're a third year student and taking responsibility for managing battery discharge rates, it's rather alarming that you don't seem to know the units for current. 

It's feasible to simulate a battery discharge as you describe, but I don't see the point. If that's all you want, you might as well write a PC application that prints down a sequence of numbers from 100% to 0%. Wouldn't it be more meaningful to demonstrate that you can measure the actual discharge of a real battery and track the battery charge level accurately?

Well, yes it would be better if i could measure the actual discharge of a battery and charge level but i don't know how to start it with arduino.
and also i might not be knowing units properly, i am here to learn, so teach me master  PeterH, seriously
measuring the actual level is perfect, but i also got to have a simulation model.

[MaJiG]

You could use the Adafruit LCD shield at https://www.adafruit.com/products/772

It has a few buttons on it for start/stop and the various loads.

It is a kit, but it is reasonably priced and comes with an Arduino library to ease your coding chores.

[MaJiG]

It looks like the Adafruit part is sold out.

Here's another http://www.sainsmart.com/sainsmart-1602-lcd-keypad-shield-for-arduino-duemilanove-uno-mega2560-mega1280.html