What Is Innovation?

Before heading out to the ASME DSCC conference in Washington DC last month, I was trying to answer this question.  When you’ve visited over a hundred academic engineering research labs across the US and Canada, you start to recognize some patterns - where some researchers struggle and others thrive.  

The popular understanding of innovation is something that is borne from a eureka moment - maybe someone sitting on a stone and thinking up the next Facebook or hitting their head and coming up with a Flux Capacitor.  

However, for many of our clients involved in engineering research, this is hardly the case.  It takes many years of toil, guiding graduate students, dealing with lots of challenges, and only the faintest prospect that what they’re doing is going to pay off in a big advancement.  

If we define innovation as expanding the physical or thinking capability of humankind, most of the work involved in research does not cause innovation.  It’s only at the very end of the work that some small expansion of human capability happens.  The issue my colleagues and I see over and over again is the effort it takes some researchers to pierce the edge and be innovative.

Coming to the aid of these struggling researchers is Moore’s Law.  The reason why Moore’s Law has persisted is that we use tools we’ve already created to come up with new tools. With each advancement, it gets easier to create and we end up with exponential increases in almost every area related to computation - including robotics, mechatronics, medical devices, and unmanned systems.

The biggest dichotomy in research progress now is between those who are adopting already developed platforms and components versus those who do it all from scratch... from bolts to code.  The latter still happens.  

In any physical research platform there are four key components - plant, power, data acquisition, and software.  Depending on the focus of research, we can accelerate research by adopting as many pre-built components as possible:

Software - open architecture that can allow for quick development of controllers and extend already existing code

Data Acquisition - reliable board spec’d to suit the application.  Building data acquisition (unless that’s the research focus) from scratch is usually a huge time sink for researchers.

Power - reliable power supply is very basic - very few researchers build power supplies from scratch now.

Plant - this is usually the heart of the research. Unless there are already existing plants that can be used for research, this is where to focus should be.

There has been an explosion of creativity in the DIY community because of the increasing ease and falling cost of the software, power, and data acquisition. This creativity is only starting to spill over into engineering research.  The mindset of throwing a limitless number of grad students at a problem is slowly evaporating and being replaced with finding the tools that will get researchers to publishable content more quickly.

As the price of these tools drops and they get easier to use, the challenge of innovating will be more on coming up with new earth-shattering ideas.

Quanser Linear Current Amplifier on the Way to Space

There was nothing unusual about the request for information on Quanser's control hardware that we received few months ago, except for the note: "FYI. We use a pair of your LCAMs to drive the beam director of our 8 kw laser power beaming system for NASA Space Elevator Games. We finished second last year." Well, that sparked some interest, because how higher can Quanser system ever get?!

Surprisingly, the competing team is not affiliated to any university or college. A group of hobbiests took on the challenge. "The competition has caught my attention," explained Brian Turner, the captain of the Kansas City Space Pirates team, " because it's something new that hasn't been done before. It's truly a multi-discipline challenge."

Brian gathered a team of other enthusiasts with knowledge and skills in different areas - electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, specialists on solar energy and optics. But the team is not limited to professionals: Dan Leafblad joined as a student at the age of 14.

As the NASA Space Elevator Games rules evolved, requiring the climber to go higher and higher, KC Space Pirates had to turn to more sophisticated system design. Mirrors focusing the sun beam were not sufficient to power the climber up to 1km. Instead, the team turned to laser. More complex system meant more design challenges. "In order to keep the laser aimed as the climber goes up, you need to track it," explained Brian. "We augmented the laser system so that it was able to tell whether the climber was moving upwards, downwards, left or right and used a fast steering mirror to steer the beam. The steering mirror was driven by voice coils." Powering the voice coils turned out to be an issue. After trying several other options, the team came across Quanser's LCAM - linear current amplifier. LCAMs proved to provide ideal operation range in terms of current, voltage and resistance. "We just did the calibration and your solution worked for us beautifully - there was no longer a problem," Brain commented.

Although the team did not win the prize in the 2010, they came pretty close. But what KC Space Pirates can claim are kids inspired to pursue science and engineering not only as a hobby, but also as a career. KC Space Pirates team members often visit middle and high schools to talk about science and engineering. "Competitions like this," says Brian, " turn science into sport. The kids see that participation in science can be fun and cool, just as the participation in sports."

Take Dan Leafblad, one of the KC Space Pirates. He himself joined the team at 14, after hearing Brian talking at the local science club. "Before getting involved with the team, I had no deep interest in science or robotics," says Dan. "After few months with the Space Pirates, it was clear to me I want to do engineering in the future. " As Dan explained, it was great for him to see that he can use the math he learned at home in a real application and design a part of the system. Last fall Dan started his first year at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla. And no wonder right in his freshmen year, Dan became a member of the Missouri S&T Solar Car Team.

And as for the LCAM, we have to see whether it will "reach" the space. It's great to know it has the power to do so.

New Peripherals to Power your Plants and Deliver Reliable Results

No matter what plant you use for teaching and research, control peripherals are important components that effect funcion and performance of the whole workstation. Quanser designed and developed a wide range of such components - power amplifiers and data acquisition boards - that allow you to easily interface between your physical plant and the control software to achieve desired results.

Quanser's Data Acquisition Solutions
Based on requirements of your system, you can select between PCI, PCI Express or USB technology:
QPID and QPIDe are versitile and powerful PCI /PCI Express boards ideal for rapid control prototyping. With a wide range of inputs and outputs you can easily connect and control a variety of devices instrumented with analog and digital sensors, using one board. Ultra-low I/O conversion times and simultaneous sampling of each I/O type make these boards suitable for complex control configurations used for research and teaching advanced control concepts with devices such as Quanser's HD^2 high definition haptic device or 3 DOF Gyroscope. QPID and QPIDe are supported by the Quanser HIL SDK, which provides API for C, C++, ActiveX, .NET, LabVIEW and MATLAB.

Q2-USB and Q8-USB represent Quanser's ground-breaking USB data acquisition technology, offering portable and affordable solution for real-time measurement and control. The wide range of inputs and outputs allows to connect and controla number of devices instrumented with analog and digital sensors, using one board. deterministic, close-loop control rates up to 2kHZ make Q2- and Q8-USB ideal solutions for teaching control concepts with systems such as Quanser's modular rotary workstation. Q2-USB and Q8-USB are supported by the Quanser HIL SDK, which provides API for C, C++, ActiveX, .NET, LabVIEW and MATLAB.

Quanser's Amplifiers
The new generation of Quanser's universal power modules - VoltPAQ line - is designed to achieve high performance with Hardware-In-The-Loop implementations. VoltPAQ linear voltage-controlled amplifiers come in 3 variations with either 1, 2 or 4 outputs and therefeore are suitable for experiments with one degeree of freedom, such as rotary Self-Erecting Inverted Pendulum; 2 degrees of freedom, such as 2 DOF Rotary Gantry or multiple degrees of freedom, such as 3 DOF Hover. All three VoltPAQ variations are compact and lightweight, saving space in your lab.

The AMPAQ amplifiers are designed for systems where precise current control is essential for the performance of the system. These high resolution linear current amplifiers eliminate dead-band and reduce noise issues common in PWM amplifiers. AMPAQs are available as models with 2 or 4 analog outputs and are ideal for complex control configurations, for teaching and research in areas such as haptics.

To create more dependable real-time platform, combine Quanser's data acquisition solutions and amplifiers with QUARC control software to drive Quanser's system or other motors and actuators. Contact us at info@quanser.com for more details and to discuss your needs.

Quanser Introduces VoltPAQ - a New Generation of Power Amplifiers

Most of the people working with Quanser's experiments are familiar with the UPM power amplifiers. As reliable as they are, they were designed a while ago and even with the improvements, the time has come to move forward. Our Electronics Group took this task over and came up with a whole new series of linear power amplifiers named VoltPAQ. Using the latest technology, we achieved high performance parameters, while reducing the size and weight of the VoltPAQ unit. All these make the new amplifiers even more affordable.

Design rendering of the new VoltPAQ-X1 power amplifier

VoltPAQ was designed to run Quanser experiments. There are more than 80 of them and to address their various requirements, we came up with three VolPAQ variations: with one (X1), two (X2) and four (X4) output channels. Each VoltPAQ channel has maximum voltage output of +/-24V, maximum current output of 4.2A and power output of 100W.

To extend the capabilities of VoltPAQ, we also offer an Analog Box. It will allow you to read and power external sensors. The Analog Box easily connects sensors on Quanser's experiments to our data acquisition boards while providing clean power to sensitive sensors.

VoltPAQs can be used to drive multiple actuators and are suitable for single and multi-DOF experiments, such as the 3 DOF Helicopter. This compact and portable solution for power amplification will be released this summer. To learn more, contact us at info@quanser.com

- Fayez Khan -

Portable Data Acquisition Solution with High Performance

For most computer peripherals, USB connection has become the standard. Quanser's engineering team is taking this technology a step further, with a novel data acquisition solution that allow users to interface to hardware through a USB connection, while maintaining a high performance levels.

Slated for release in spring 2010 are two new data acquisition systems - the 8 channel high performance Q8-USB with 16-bit ADC and DAC resolutions, hardware encoder velocities and external trigerring, and the economical 2-channel high performance Q2-USB with 12-bit ADC and DAC resolutions, as an alternative where the full functionality of Q8-USB is not required.

In development - computer rendering of the Q2-USB

With closed-loop sample rates of 1 kHz and higher, +/-10V analog input and output range, and plug-and-play functionality, these systems represent a portable solution suitable for various teaching and research applications.

Stay tuned for more details.

QPID - A New Generation of Data Acquisition Boards

Quanser's QPID is the new generation of PCI and PCIe Data Acquisition Boards that brings researchers more functionality and features. A new personality is developed using FPGA technology, offering a higher real-time performance. Based on the National Instruments RIO technology, QPID comes with a customized terminal board for easy access to signals.

Leveraging Quanser's control development expertise, QPID Data Acquisition Board comes with a pre-loaded "Quanser personality". Use the QPID with Quanser's terminal board to get 8 analog inputs, 8 analog outputs, 8 encoders (with encoder velocities), 56 DIO, external ADC triggering, RTSI (multicard ADC trigerring), external interrupt, fuse good indicator and SPI with 1 dedicated slave select.

Stay tuned for more details!

New QPID Data Acquisition Card Testing Complete

I made a mention back in June that we were working on a new data acquisition card. Well, we have just finished testing with our PCI prototype based on the NI PCI-7831R and we now have the final feature list:

• 8 16-bit analog inputs with simultaneous sampling
  

• 8 16-bit analog outputs with simultaneous sampling


• 8 24-bit encoder inputs with quadrature decoding, filtering, and simultaneous sampling up to 40 MHz


• Hardware based encoder velocities


• 8 PWM outputs with configuration options suitable for general purpose single channel, H-bridges, hobby servos, and 3-phase motor control


• SPI communications


• 56 general purpose digital I/O


• Hardware watchdog


• External inputs for triggering conversions and interrupts


• Multiple general purpose timers


• Many possible synchronization options

We are particularly excited about the hardware based encoder velocity measurements. This gives you a very clean velocity measurement independent of your sample rate and jitter, and without doing any differentiation or filtering. The velocities are nearly instantaneous with no phase lag. This is particularly beneficial at low speeds or for lower encoder resolutions where you may only get a small number of counts per second.

As we finalize the mechanical case for the terminal board and all the software components we will be moving towards production and our official release!

New QPID Data Acquisition Coming Soon!

Over the last couple months we've been hard at work to bring you a new choice in data acquisition cards: the Quanser Personality Intelligent DAQ (QPID -- pronouced "cupid"). Working with National Instruments, we've developed a new card based on the NI RIO data acquisition card. Starting with NI's excellent acquisition hardware has allowed us to bring a this new product to market in a fraction of the time that it takes to design a card from scratch.

We're still a little ways from our official release, but stay tuned for the list of features to be release shortly!