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Control System Design and Implementation Using the Motor Controls Toolkit – The Robot Car

Abstract

This paper describes the development of the Motor Controls Toolkit (MCT) for a series of control system experiments. We intend to eventually use the MCT with an off-the-shelf hobby type car type chassis. This combination of hardware provides a portable, relatively inexpensive platform that can be used for high school or college level classroom demonstrations or for an undergraduate laboratory or independent study in control and automation. The kit provides opportunities to study controls principles, signal processing, and simple power electronics.

The MCT consists of a Xilinx field programmable gate array (FPGA) development board interfaced with a daughterboard that contains drive electronics for the motor, interface logic for an optical encoder, a breadboard for prototyping, and connectors for interfacing with other hardware. An H-bridge circuit, using pulse-width modulation, controls motor speed. The toolkit is small so that it can be secured to an off-the-shelf hobby type car chassis. Using an FPGA to control the kit provides great flexibility. An instructor can optionally consider a variety of peripherals. By means of a soft-core microprocessor system, the FPGA will control the car and will operate autonomously. Sensors collect data which the FPGA uses to control the motor.

The toolkit is currently being developed. This spring semester graduate students will be involved in its further implementation. Students will be able to use the toolkit to investigate pulse-width modulation, optical encoders, a D.C. motor model, and a simple speed control feedback loop. Classic controls examples that are possible include the inverted pendulum, cruise control, and advanced motor control. The FPGA development board is able to communicate with a PC. This communication allows the user to understand what information is being read by the sensors and how the FPGA is programmed to respond. This kit provides several experiments and demonstrations which can be shown to prospective engineering students or undergraduates in a control and automation course.

Introduction

We are developing the Motor Controls Toolkit (MCT) for use in a series of control system experiments. The MCT consists of a Xilinx field programmable gate array (FPGA) development board interfaced with a daughterboard that contains drive electronics for the motor, interface logic for an optical encoder, a breadboard for prototyping, and connectors for interfacing with other hardware. We intend to eventually use the MCT with an off-the-shelf hobby type car type chassis. This combination of hardware provides a portable, relatively inexpensive platform that can be used for high school or college level classroom demonstrations or for an undergraduate laboratory or independent study in control and automation. The kit provides opportunities to study controls principles, signal processing, and simple power electronics.

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Hill, J. (2008, June), Control System Design And Implementation Using The Motor Controls Toolkit – The Robot Car Paper presented at 2008 Annual Conference & Exposition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--3545