Virtual Experiments Introduced at 49th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control

Last month I had the opportunity to attend the 49^th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control in Atlanta, Georgia USA. Once again, the Conference on Decision and Control brought together an international community of researchers and practitioners in the field of automatic control to discuss the latest advancements of the discipline, shape its future directions, and promote its diffusion among the scientific community at large.

The highlight of our exhibit at the conference was our announcement of our partnership with John Wiley and Sons to feature 10 virtual experiments from Quanser in the newly released 6^th edition of Norman S. Nise’s Control Systems Engineering. As many of you know, Nise’s book is the most wildly adopted text for core control courses in mechanical, electrical and other engineering programs.

The ten virtual control experiments are powered by LabVIEW and allow students to manipulate Quanser's simulated lab plants and view realistic response behavior. The virtual experiments will help deepen students' homework learning experience and help them prepare for their actual lab work using Quanser’s real plants.

For more information about the virtual experiments supplied with the textbook please visit our blog: http://quanser.blogspot.com/2010/12/teach-control-virtually-anywhere-with.html. And, for a limited time, you can request a complimentary copy of Nise’s text by completing an online survey at http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e35fyitnggtjdjjy/start.

Teach Control Virtually Anywhere with New Text from Norman Nise

Control Systems Engineering by Norman S. Nise is the most wildly adopted textbook for core control courses in mechanical, electrical and other engineering programs. The sixth edition, which is releasing in 2011, offers a dynamic new feature: 10 virtual experiments from Quanser. The experiments are powered by LabVIEW and allow students to manipulate Quanser's simulated lab plants and view realistic response behavior. The virtual experiments will help deepen students' homework learning experience and help them prepare for the actual lab work.

For a limited time, you can request a complimentary copy of the text. But first, here's more information about the virtual experiments supplied with the textbook:

Automobile Suspension allows to explore the dynamics of a two degree of freedom system — an automobile suspension system driving over a bumpy road — demonstrated with the Quanser Active Suspension system modeled in LabVIEW.

With Open-Loop Servo Motor students can explore the dynamics of the Quanser Rotary Servo system modeled in LabVIEW. It is particularly important to know how a servo motor behaves when using them in high-precision applications such as hard disk drives.

Rotary Inverted Pendulum simulates the linear and non-linear model of the Quanser Rotary Inverted Pendulum in LabVIEW. The behavior of an inverted pendulum is similar to a variety of systems, such as Segway transporters and human posture.

First-Order Open-Loop Systems teach students how to find a first-order transfer function representing the Quanser Rotary Servo, then validate the model by simulating it in LabVIEW. Servo motors are used in mechatronic gadgets such as cameras.

Second-Order System Response experiment allows to observe the effect that natural frequency and damping ratio have on controlling the speed response of the Quanser Linear Servo in LabVIEW. The concept is applicable to automobile cruise control or speed control of a train or subway.

Position Control Gain Design teaches how to design the position control gain for the Quanser Linear Servo and simulate its closed-loop response in LabVIEW. This concept is used, for instance, to control a rover exploring the terrain of a planet.

With the Stability experiment students learn how to evaluate the stability of the Quanser Linear Inverted Pendulum in LabVIEW. When in the upward balanced position, this system addresses the challenge of stabilizing a rocket during take-off. In the downward position it emulates the construction gantry crane.

Steady-State Error experiment teaches how to find the steady-state error of the Quanser Rotary Servo when subject to an input or a disturbance by simulating it in LabVIEW. This analysis becomes important when developing controllers for bottle labeling machines or robot joint control.

PD Controller Design experiment uses root-locus to design a PD controller for the Quanser Ball and Beam using LabVIEW. The Ball and Beam is an unstable system, similar to exothermic chemical processes that have to be stabilized to avoid overheating.

Improving Transient Response and Steady-State Error Using Rate Feedback and PI Control teaches students how to design a compensator in LabVIEW that controls the ball position in the Quanser Magnetic Levitation system. Magnetic Levitation technology is used for modern transportation systems that suspend, such as the high speed Magnetic Levitation train.

The new edition of the text is published by John Wiley and Sons and will be available for purchase through them in 2011. If you would like to review a complimentary copy of the text, please contact us at info@quanser.com. For more information about Quanser's real control plants and modules, please visit our website.

QUARC: Virtual Plant Demo - SRV02 Self-Erecting Inverted Pendulum

True to Quanser’s learning-by-doing philosophy, the QUARC built-in demonstrations, as previously described in our QUARC: Learning By Doing post, have now been augmented in QUARC 2.0.

Amongst other added features, QUARC 2.0 includes a demonstration of Quanser’s first Virtual Plant (VP), consisting of a realistic visual and dynamic representation of Quanser’s actual SRV02 Self-Erecting Inverted Pendulum Control Challenge system. This built-in VP example simulates the dynamics and control of the corresponding Quanser actual plant and animates the experiment in full 3D realism in real-time. As usual with Quanser’s experiments, the closed-loop controller is fully open-architecture and implemented in Simulink, with all the system parameters being accessible and tunable.

Request a free demo license now. Here's what you can expect - watch this video and read on!
(video also available on YouTube)

Starting the model automatically opens the QUARC standalone 3D visualization window. The pendulum is initially in the downward position. The controller then uses an energy-based swing-up control scheme to swing the pendulum back and forth until it is close to the upright position. Once the pendulum is sufficiently close to upright and is not moving too quickly, the controller switches to a balancing control algorithm to maintain the pendulum in the vertical position. Once the pendulum is being balanced, the rotary arm is commanded using a generated square wave and the controller continues to balance the pendulum in the upright position, despite the movement of the supporting arm. Notice how the controller exhibits non-minimum phase behaviour to ensure that the pendulum does not fall when moving to the next arm position; in other words, it gives the arm an impulse in the wrong direction to get the pendulum leaning before moving the arm to the correct orientation.

If you have taken QUARC 2.0 for a test drive, you probably noticed how it can now act as a Virtual Plant Simulator (VPS) without hardware and also without Real-Time Workshop (RTW) (as the VP can be run in Simulink normal simulation mode)! Real-time operation is achieved by using the QUARC System Timebase block.

This demonstration also serves as another example of the powerful visualization capabilities provided with QUARC 2.0, including inheritance, specular lighting and fog. As a reminder, the QUARC 2.0 visualization module has been previously showcased in our Visualize Your Simulation and Quanser Visualization Blocks posts.

So what other best way is there to start the new year than to ask for a QUARC 2.0 demo license, try all these new possibilities firsthand and see it for yourself?