Monday, November 22, 2010

Improved Mechatronics Control Kit Combines New Technology with User-Friendly Operation

Mechatronics Control Kit - or MechKit - is one of several experiments Quanser offers for hands-on teaching of control. Originally designed by Dan Block and Dr. Mark Spong at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, it has been popular for several years, thanks to its compact design and selection of control challenges. As technology evolves, the Mechatronics Control Kit needs to keep up. So here are the latest improvements our engineering team came up with to make this lab tool more effective for educators:

New peripherals improve MechKit's performance.
To improve performance of the MechKit, we integrated new peripherals developed by Quanser: our new Q2-USB DAQ and VoltPAQ-X1 power amplifier. Plus swapping modular parts to set up a new experiment is now much easier.

QUARC integration enables rapid control prototyping
Another new feature of the improved MechKit is the interface to QUARC. That makes changing parameters much easier and allows MechKit users to benefit from all the features of QUARC rapid control prototyping software and its seamless integration with MATLAB/Simulink.

More compact design
All above mentioned improvements result in more compact and portable design. Sure, the MechKit got a bit smaller, but it also became more powerful.

You can see the prototype of the Mechatronics Control Kit at the upcoming IEEE Conference on Decision and Control 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia. The new MechKit is slated for release in 2011. For more details, contact info@quanser.com

Computer rendering of the new improved MechKit.

1 comment:

Brian Smith said...

Hy. I am doing a little research about mechanical systems. And I find one great new Open Access book ( free to download and share ) This book is intended for both mechanical and electronics engineers who wish to get some training in smart electronics devices embedded in mechanical systems. The book is partly a textbook and partly a monograph. I find it very useful, so I decide to share it with you. You can find “ Intelligent Mechatronics ” here: http://www.intechopen.com/books/show/title/intelligent-mechatronics Cheers! :)