MIT Students Using Quanser and NI Tools in Feedback Control Systems Course

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) undergraduate and graduate students taking the Feedback Control Systems course are quite familiar with the Quanser 3 DOF Helicopter system. They use it in the course to prototype and validate their controllers and connect the theory to real-world.

Within a series of lab modules, students are tasked to design roll, pitch and yaw controllers for the 3 DOF Helicopter using various techniques, including root loci, Bode plots, LQR, LQG and dynamic output feedback. At the design and simulation stage, students work in the LabVIEW Control Design and Simulation Module and LabVIEW MathScript RT Module environments. With the 3D visualization of the 3 DOF Helicopter provided, students can easily compare the simulation and the actual physical system.

To test the performance of designed controllers on an actual physical system, students use the Quanser-NI platform, combining Quanser higly nonlinear 3 DOF Helicopter with NI hardware (CompactRIO) and software  tools (LabVIEW FPGA and LabVIEW Real-Time modules). This solution significantly reduces setup time, simplifying connections and testing process so that the lab time can be used for teaching and learning rather than hardware testing. But see it for yourself:

The Quanser-NI platform used at MIT proved not only effective for validating control theory and designed methods, it also helped increase students engagement and interest. As Professor Jonathan How says in the article for National Instruments website,  "...numerous students spent extra time to participate in our optional competition, in which the helicopter is to autonomously traverse a virtual obstacle course. Since the completion of the term, several students have independently contacted the course staff due to increased interest in applying LabVIEW to other projects at MIT."
Read more about Professor How's experience with the Quanser-NI platform.

How Researchers Around the World Are Using Quanser 3 DOF Hover

Quanser’s 3DOF Hover system has been serving the needs of researchers and educators in controls labs for many years. It is an economical and reliable hardware-in-the-loop test bed for the study of behavior of vertical lift-off vehicles in the lab, without actually flying.  

Here’s how some researchers are putting the Quanser 3 DOF Hover system to work.

Instituto Tecnologico de Aeronautica (ITA), Brazil:  Fault-Tolerant Control Research

Professor Roberto Kawakami leads the Fault-Tolerant Research Group in ITA’s Electronic Engineering Department. His research team’s main focus is the fault-tolerant control. In this context, they have investigated both passive and active approaches.

In a passive approach, the controller is designed to be robust to the effect of faults, whereas in an active approach, the controller is reconfigured by using information provided by a fault detection and isolation module. More specifically, their research has involved the use of robust and model predictive control techniques. As an example, they recently employed the Quanser 3 DOF Hover system to evaluate robust controllers designed by using an H∞ loop shaping method. The results were reported at the 2013 Asian Control Conference.

For most of their research activities in this area, Professor Kawakami’s group has used Quanser’s 3 DOF Hover and 3 DOF Helicopter systems with Quanser’s QUARC® rapid control prototyping software. They chose to work with Quanser systems because of their simplicity, speed and efficiency. Using Quanser products allow them to focus their efforts on the design of innovative control laws, with minimal time spent on low-level hardware and software issues. They find Quanser’s customer support is very good and the equipment has proven itself to be reliable after several years of operation.

 Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain: LQR and MPC Control
The following is a video produced by Gonzalo Torro Ferri, then of the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain, showing a linear quadratic regulator and model-predictive controller designed to command the pitch, roll and yaw angles of the 3 DOF Hover system.

How Professors Around the World Are Using Quanser’s 2 DOF Helicopter

Quanser’s 2 DOF Helicopter is making significant contributions every day in control labs all around the world. The experiment provides an economical Hardware-in-the-Loop test bed to understand and develop control laws for a vehicle that has the pitch and yaw dynamics representative of a tethered rigid body helicopter, spacecraft or underwater vehicle. 

Quanser's 2 DOF Helicopter is an economical Hardware-in-the-Loop testbed to develop controllers for vehicles that have the dynamics representative of a tethered, rigid body helicopter, spacecraft or underwater vehicle.

The 2 DOF Helicopter works seamlessly within both MATLAB^®/ Simulink^® or LabVIEW^™ environments and is built to high quality standards, allowing it to stand up to long term use. Given these factors, it’s not surprising that educators and researchers have found it to be an efficient tool for advancing both their teaching and research. 

Here’s a look at how some undergraduates, professors and researchers are using this versatile experiment.

Federal University of Itajuba, Brazil:  Optimal Control Research

Professor Luis Henrique is with the Systems Engineering and Information Technology Institute at Federal University of Itajuba, in Brazil.

His line of research is based on new optimal control approaches using H2 and H infinity synthesis, with a focus on the exploration of new properties which can be reached through state-of-art techniques in multivariable feedback control.

This research has been funded by FAPEMIG, a research agency in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The research team decided an aerospace plant was the best choice for practical testing because these systems are naturally good examples of multivariable feedback control applications.

The setup with the Quanser 2 DOF Helicopter model, along with Quanser’s QUARC^® rapid control prototyping software allows the research team to highlight its unique dynamic properties, which are the basis of their practical tests, and evaluate and prove the main results of the new approaches proposed in their major researches. 

As Professor Henrique told us, “the reasons we chose a Quanser solution included, but were not limited to, the following: the high quality of the components used in the model; the open architecture design of the Quanser system which allowed us to integrate the system with commercial scientific software; and the proven reliability of Quanser systems, along with their reputation as solutions for control systems applications.”

Northwestern Polytechnical University, China: Autonomous Aircraft Control Research

A member of Northwestern Polytechnical University’s Department of Control and Information Engineering, Automation School, Professor Li Aijun is focused on control theory research and autonomous aircraft control research. 

Professor Aijun uses the Quanser 2DOF Helicopter to teach controls to his undergraduates, while his graduate students also use it as an experimental test bed. His lab includes two Quanser 2 DOF Helicopters, the QPID hardware-in-the-loop control board, the VoltPAQ-X2 amplifier and Quanser’s QUARC® rapid control prototyping software. Professor Aijun favours the Quanser solution because he and his students find the MATLAB/Simulink –based controller design process easy and intuitive.

Ohio State University, USA: A Video Showing the 2 DOF Helicopter Used in a Student Project

The following is a video produced by Ohio State University students showing a Quanser 2 DOF Helicopter tracking a joystick under LQR+integrator+observer control.

View the video:

To learn more about the Quanser 2 DOF Helicopter, click here. 

Quanser 3 DOF Helicopter Platform Helps Develop High-Speed Embedded MPCs

Were you to search the Internet or YouTube for videos on applications of specific Quanser devices (a practice we definitely recommend), you’d find they’re in wide use by researchers and educators all around the world. 

One of the videos we’ve seen lately involves our 3DOF Helicopter.  It’s being used by Jonathan Currie and his team at the Industrial Information and Control Centre housed at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in New Zealand.  

They’re involved in developing a high-speed embedded Model Predictive Controller (MPC), a constrained optimal control strategy which has been widely used in the world of chemical and process control. Like other researchers, they believe that MPCs have considerable applicability within the high speed (kHz) embedded world of unmanned vehicles (air, ground and sea).

Researchers at  AUT New Zealand chose the Quanser 3 DOF Helicopter as a test bed for their unmanned vehicle research.

Jonathan and his team chose to test their embedded MPC control with the Quanser 3 DOF Helicopter, because they were seeking a challenging, nonlinear MIMO plant for which traditional control strategies (such as PID) were either unsuitable, very hard to tune or hard to get going at high speed. They implemented their MPC algorithm on a low-cost Texas Instruments Delfino microcontroller together with an auto-coding toolset implemented in MATLAB^®.

Quanser’s 3 DOF Helicopter provided a robust, open-architecture, and visually impressive platform. The research team could easily remove the Quanser Q8-USB DAQ from the original solution (where the controller runs on the PC) and, when coupled with the Quanser VoltPAQ-X2 power amplifier, measure and control the system using the TI microcontroller. The 3 DOF Helicopter enabled them to test their own controller algorithms and hardware on real system and validate their control design.

Currently the AUT team is building, generating, compiling and deploying MPC controllers capable of 5 kHz sampling rates in as little as 10 seconds on microcontrollers that only cost a few dollars. This proved so promising that the team has started a spin-off company, Inverse Problem Ltd, to commercialize the ideas. Quanser is pleased that its products contributed to the AUT team’s research.

How Professors Around the World Are Using Quanser’s 3 DOF Helicopter

Professors all around the globe have made the Quanser 3 DOF Helicopter an essential part of their control labs. It is being used as a hands-on, undergraduate teaching experiment, as the basis of a student design project, or as an integral part of aerospace research. Quite often, it’s as all three. 

What makes the 3 DOF Helicopter a popular choice? First of course is its fundamental ability to help design a control system that regulates the elevation and travel of a 3 DOF Helicopter. Beyond that, a number of professors have told us they appreciate the high quality of the product itself. Others like how easily it integrates with a large family of Quanser peripherals. Still others value its ability to work seamlessly in either MATLAB®/Simulink® or LabVIEW™ environments. Ultimately, the 3 DOF Helicopter serves as an efficient, time-saving solution that enhances professors’ teaching and research.

Here’s a glimpse at what some professors are doing with their Quanser 3 DOF Helicopter.  

Zhejiang University: Wireless network control research

Dr. He Sun is with the Institute of Industrial Process Control in the Department of Control Science and Engineering at Zhdejiang University. 

He is using the Quanser 3 DOF Helicopter as a research tool, as are several other graduate and Ph.D. students. Dr. Sun is conducting wireless network control research, that is, receiving the helicopter's state and sending the control signal by wireless channel.

Dr. Sun lists several reasons for choosing to work with Quanser products. He is very pleased with the quality of Quanser service and the Quanser representatives that provide it. He finds the products themselves are high quality as well, and saved him valuable research time. Dr. Sun is thinking about recommending Quanser solutions to colleagues who are conducting research in vibration detection and control.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University: Flight Control Research

A member of the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Professor Liu Shiqian’s main research work involves flight control, vision control and unmanned aerial vehicles. To that end he uses a number of Quanser aerospace products. 

They include the Quanser 3 DOF Helicopter, QPID terminal board, QUARC rapid prototyping software, and VoltPAQ amplifiers. He also plans to use the Quanser Qball UAV for his research and teaching course next year. Professor Shiqian relies on a wide range of Quanser hardware and software because he finds them convenient and efficient in conducting successful experiments.

Ryerson University: Teaching a 4^th Year Avionics Design Project

As a research associate in Ryerson University’s Department of Aerospace Engineering, Primoz Cresnik focuses on such areas as Space Vehicle Dynamics and Satellite Control Systems, Aircraft Flight Performance and Avionics Systems.

Within the department, he and his associates take advantage of a wide range of Quanser hardware and software to help them teach and do research. The 3 DOF Helicopter, for example, is used to help teach a fourth year Avionics design project.

“In the Avionics course we use the 3 DOF Helicopters, power amplifiers, Q8 data acquisition boards”, says Cresnik. He adds, “for software, we use Quanser’s QUARC (rapid prototyping software) with MATLAB®/Simulink® for both courses.“

The 3 DOF Helicopter and other Quanser products were selected by Cresnik’s department because they offer them several advantages: they get their projects up and running quickly; QUARC rapid prototyping software supports their MATLAB®/Simulink® orientation; the hardware is durable and the service they receive is friendly and helpful.

Bristol University:  A Video on Using the 3 DOF Helicopter for Control Coursework

The following is a video produced by Dr. Arthur Richards, Senior Lecturer in Dynamics and Control, Aerospace Engineering Department, University of Bristol, UK. It introduces his students to control coursework using the Quanser 3 DOF Helicopter.

View the video:

Dr. Richard's video introduces his students to how they'll be using the Quanser 3 DOF Helicopter in his control course.

To learn more about the Quanser 3 DOF Helicopter, clickhere.

Student-developed Flight Simulator Aims to Take Controls Education to New Heights

In the wake of the overwhelmingly positive response by students to the Quanser Driving Simulator and the remarkable ability of this immersive 3D environment and simulation to provide an engaging platform for learning control theory, Quanser took the opportunity to go to the next level. To really emphasize the unique potential that the platform has to engage students in control systems design and development from the ground up, we decided to hand off the project to senior design students at the University of New Mexico.

The Challenge: Create a high level, engaging, hands-on platform to teach helicopter flight control

The students were asked to help Quanser innovate the way flight control is taught. They were tasked to design an educational platform that is industrially relevant, exciting and engaging; utilizes Hardware-in-the-Loop components; and relates to classic engineering concepts and practices.

We provided them with several Quanser tools and devices, including our 2 DOF Helicopter and Rapid Control Prototyping (RCP) Toolkit with the Quanser 3D Viewer visualization software. Quanser engineers then mentored the team throughout the design process.

The Quanser 2 DOF Helicopter hardware is integrated with the on-screen simulation
as part of the competition-oriented video game that helps students gain familiarity
with the simulation and its controls.  

The Solution: The Quanser 3D helicopter flight simulator takes flight

The students aimed to design a platform that was as pedagogically rigorous as it was engaging. This was important because a great many game-style educational tools are dismissed by serious students. They also knew that the resulting 3D helicopter visualization had to be immersive and realistic, yet simple to control.

To get them off to a proper start, Quanser engineers outlined key success criteria. The first requirement was hardware-in-the-loop components, including the Quanser 2 DOF Helicopter. The 2 DOF Helicopter combined realistic model dynamics and ease of use, and helped ensure the undergraduate students had a serious and industrially-relevant learning experience.

For the second requirement, the capstone team had to create a repeatable, close-loop course for the virtual helicopter to follow that would allow students to develop and test the low level control systems and the high level navigation algorithms. Once these criteria were set, the students went to work on design and development, consulting with Quanser engineers and their instructors when necessary.

The students went one step further and added complexity to their  challenge by implementing an exciting helicopter-and-car chase capability.  This was achieved by integrating code from the Quanser Driving Simulator.

The Project Outcome: An innovative, high-flying, hands-on controls learning experience

Speaking for the UNM capstone team, Kurt Hollowell summed up their experience. “The Quanser (RCP) Toolkit gave us the functionality to control the helicopter at a basic level through LabVIEW™. We were able to change various inputs to the helicopter, as well as view helicopter state outputs such as current pitch and yaw readings, changes over time, and so on.

“Quanser’s visualization software allowed us to easily work with the models within our simulation. We were able to import, scale, and change the models as needed all in one place, which seamlessly integrated with the rest of our system. Ultimately, the toolset gave us the power to perform quick iterations during the development of our project."

The capstone project student team from the University of  New Mexico includes (left to right) Edgar Chavez (CE), Mitch Castillo (EE), Davie Torres (EE), and Kurt Hollowell (CE). 

As a platform for control systems education, the 2 DOF helicopter system and the simulation provided by the UNM capstone students now facilitates several flight scenarios for future users, including free flying over a never-ending environment, flying through ring courses, pursuing a car on the ground, and more. Overall, the system gives control systems and engineering students the opportunity to have a realistic and engaging hands-on learning experience.

The development of a complete courseware offering by these 4th year engineering students was accomplished in only 7 months, a testament to the effectiveness of the Quanser rapid control prototyping tools, the design process and the abilities of the students. We believe the successful completion of this capstone project will lead to a vivid new way to bring control theory to life in the lab.  It has already enhanced the students’ ability to succeed in their academic and industrial careers.