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Elevator Control System Project

Abstract

As part of the requirements in a junior-level measurements & instrumentation course (for an Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology program), students are required to design and implement an elevator control system project. The elevator simulator is pre-built and equipped with a car that travels through three floors, a car hoist system that uses a 12-volt DC motor, floor sensors to detect the position of the car, and an elevator call pushbutton on each floor. Terminal strips are provided for I/O connections. Students are required to use a National Instruments data acquisition system with analog I/O and digital I/O capability. The objective of the project is for students to design the software (using LabVIEW) and hardware interfacing electronics for the simulated elevator control system such that it mimics the operation of a typical elevator. This paper provides a detailed listing of the engineering requirements for the system and the functional test procedure for verifying proper operation of the system. Examples of student work are provided, along with a project assessment. This project is also linked to several ABET criteria and can be used for assessment of the same. Recommendations are provided to help ensure student success on the project. This project has been found to effectively integrate both hardware and software design, while utilizing information covered from many prerequisite courses. Due to the slow response characteristics of this system, this PC-based control project lends itself well to this application.

Introduction to the Measurements and Instrumentation Course

This is a required first semester junior-level course for Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology students. The course description covers measurement concepts, transducers, electronic- aided measurement, and mechanical and electrical measurements. A LabVIEW textbook is required for the students1. Prerequisite knowledge includes circuit analysis and design, analog and digital electronics, microprocessor applications, and PLC applications. The students’ software background includes high-level programming, assembly language programming, and ladder-logic programming.

The course is 3 credits and consists of 2 hours of lecture and 2 hours of lab per week. The lecture content of the course is divided into three sections: Programming applications using LabVIEW (5 weeks), data acquisition and signal conditioning (4 weeks), and measurement applications (7 weeks).

The lab content of the course is designed to reinforce concepts discussed during lecture. Each lab is considered a project since it lists a series of engineering requirements and requires either 2 or 3 weeks to complete, depending upon the scope of the project. Each project is completed by a student team that consists of no more than 2 students (some students prefer to work by themselves). Students pick their team members at the beginning of the semester.

For nearly all of the projects, students are expected to work outside of the scheduled lab time in order to complete the objectives. Grading for the project consists of 60% based on meeting all of the engineering requirements (no partial credit is given), 30% based on the content of the report, and

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Loker, D. (2010, June), Elevator Control System Project Paper presented at 2010 Annual Conference & Exposition, Louisville, Kentucky. 10.18260/1-2--16165