How Researchers Use Quanser Systems

With two of this year's control conferences - American Control Conference (ACC) and European Control Conference (ECC) behind us, we are happy to report that Quanser systems help many researchers in their work, providing a platform to validate their theoretical concepts. Here are just a few examples:

Controls Applications in Medicine
Although Quanser's QUBE-Servo rotary servomotor plant is primarily used for teaching controls, it has found its application in research as well. A research team from University of California, Merced, USA and IIT Gandhinagar, India studied the mechanism causing rest tremors in patients suffering from Parkinson's disease, with a goal of suggesting a simple diagnostic tool for this degenerative disorder. The team presented their research results at the ACC 2014 conference, in the paper "Experimental verification of observations relating to Parkinsonian tremor". Using the QUBE-Servo plant, the team recreated tremors similar to those observed in Parkinson's disease patients. Further they explored how observations from simulation studies, suggesting that one of the primary causes of the tremors may be the increased sensorimotor loop delay in patints, can be used for developing and improving diagnostic tools.

Vision-Based Control Systems
Vision-based control systems find increasing number of applications in areas such as industrial robotics and autonomous vehicles. However, time delays that can arise due to image processing can result in undesired behavior of a system, or its instability. In their paper "Time-delayed vision-based DC motor control via rightmost eigenvalue assignment" presented at the ACC 2014 conference, researchers from North Carolina AT State University, USA and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA, present an effective design method for time-delay vision-based motor control. Using Quanser's Rotary Servo SRV02, they experimentally demonstrate effectiveness of using eigenvalue assignment based on Lambert W function method to design PV and PIV controllers.

Unmanned Aerial Systems

Unmanned aerial vehicles attract a lot of attention in the last decade, and the number of applications in civilian as well as military sectors is growing. With uncertainties inherent to dynamic models of these vehicles, their flight control system design is challenging. In the paper "Experimental results on robust optimal attitude feedback control of a model helicopter", presented at the ECC 2014, the research team from China's Beihang University and Tsinghua University addresses this control problem. They propose a robust optimal control method to deal with the attitude control of a model helicopter independently of the angular velocities. Using Quanser's 3 DOF Helicopter, the researchers demonstrate the effectiveness of their control approach, as well as the robust stability and the asymptotical tracking properties of the closed-loop control system.

Signal Shaping

Utilizing the recently introduced concept of signal shaping techniques using distributed delays, the research team from the Czech Technical University in Prague explored a double oscillatory mode suppression. In their paper "Double oscillatory mode compensation by inverse signal shaper with distributed delay", presented at the ECC 2014 conference, they demonstrate that a double mode zero vibration shaper can work well in both the open and feedback loop compositions. To validate their research, the team used Quanser's Rotary Flexible Link system.

For more research papers from the ACC 2014, ECC 2014 and other conferences and research journals, visit www.quanser.com/research_papers.

ECC 2014: The Places You Can Meet Quanser

The researchers and engineers gathering in Strasbourg, France for this year's European Control Conference, will be quite busy for the next few days. The premier controls event in Europe offers them a packed program from June 24 to June 27.

Throughout the conference, the delegates will have several opportunities to meet with Quanser: in the exhibit area, the Quanser booth will showcase several demos of research platforms used by researchers around the world to validate their theoretical concepts. Some of them are actually presenting their work at ECC 2014. If you are attending the conference, you can joint the session on Wednesday, June 25 at 5.20 pm, when the research team from the University of Southampton is presenting their paper Design of Control Functions for an Internet-Based Tele-Robotic Laboratory.

Quanser devices offer a highly efficient platform for bridging the theory-implementation gap, allowing to adopt a framework of hardware in the loop (HIL) implementation of the control system that integrates a physical system (the plant) with dynamics of sufficient realism for physically relevant testing, and a real-time computational and modeling framework that allows for rapid testing of algorithms and concepts. Using such a combination, researchers are able to readily validate their research concepts with a physical system. To learn more, download our whitepaper. You can also visit our database of research papers.

Quanser Research Papers Database Available Online

Researchers around the world are using Quanser cutting-edge equipment to help test theories and transform ideas into reality. Quanser platforms became the de facto commercial standard for control research validation, presenting researchers with a framework integrating a physical system with realistic dynamics, real-time computation and modeling that allow for rapid testing of algorithms and concepts.

A wide collection of research papers now available online is an example of research covering a broad range of applications, including flight control, unmanned vehicles, biomedical and rehabilitation robotics, haptics, automation and more. Share your research results with your peers - send us your paper and we will add it to the online database and profile your work in our newsletter.

The online research papers database helps you quickly find research work
related to the area you are interested in, or a specific Quanser system.

Complete with all peripherals and software, Quanser platforms let you spend your valuable time and resources on your core research, not on building and maintaining "do it yourself" test rigs. To learn more about Quanser solutions on research, download the whitepaper "The Quanser Platform for Control Systems Research Validation". To discuss your specific research applications needs, contact Quanser Applications Engineer.

Quanser Shake Table Used for Validation of Sloshing Research

Free-surface dynamics of liquids in tanks subjected to acceleration - also known as sloshing - is an issue touching on many real life applications, including fluid transportation and shipping, as well as design of vibration absorber devices.

Researchers from the Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Argentina, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile and Rice University, USA, studied the problem using the finite element analysis, based on solving the Navier-Stokes equations of incompressible fluids using a monolithic solver. To validate the numerical results, the research team used Quanser Shake Table II to control the motion of a rectangular tank with ultrasonic sensors.

Experimental setup with the Quanser Shake Table II loaded with the instrumented tank:
table controllers and ultrasonic sensor

The results of the team's research work was published in the December 2013 issue of the Computational Mechanics journal, in the article titled "Finite element computation and experimental validation of sloshing in rectangular tanks."

For more details on how researchers use Quanser platforms for control systems research validation, visit our website's Research Papers section or download the whitepaper The Quanser Platform for Control Systems Research Validation.

Researchers from Brazil Use Quanser Platform for Control of an Active Suspension System

Quanser's Active Suspension
Platform

Researchers from the Control Research Laboratory at the Sao Paulo State University, Brazil, study different approaches to control active suspension systems. They use Quanser Active Suspension platform to simulate and analyze the effectiveness of their control strategies. The team summarized their work in a paper "Sliding mode control for Active Suspension System with Data Acquisition Delay," recently accepted for publishing in the Mathematical Problems in Engineering Journal.

The paper addresses the issue of delays that may occur in the PC-based control of an active suspension system. The signal delays can occur, for example, in a network-based control system or due to slow slow data acquisition. The research team proposes using state predictors with sliding-mode control to take delays into account. Both continuous-time and a discrete-time methods are designed and implemented on the Quanser Active Suspension system. Based on the results from simulations and hardware tests, the paper evaluates the effectiveness of these control strategies.

To learn how other researchers have used Quanser systems as experimental platforms for their research, visit www.quanser.com/research_papers. You can also download the whitepaper "The Quanser Platform for Control Systems Research Validation."

Research Work Using Quanser 6 DOF Telepresence System Published in a Prestigious Journal

Researchers from Imperial College, UK, and University of Calgary, Canada, focus on understanding forces exerted during surgical procedure - a prerequisite to successful design and application of robots in microsurgery. They summarized their results in a paper, recently published by a prestigious International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery.

Quanser 6 DOF Telepresence System

As an experimental platform, the research team used Quanser 6 DOF Telepresence System, combinig HD² High Definition Haptic Device and 6 DOF Denso Open Architecture Robot in a master-slave configuration allowing for high-fidelity teleoperation with haptic feedback.

Click here to access the full paper online.

To learn how other researchers have used Quanser systems as experimental platforms for their research, visit www.quanser.com/research_papers and download the whitepaper "The Quanser Platform for Control Systems Research Validation."

To learn more about the project neuroArm, visit www.neuroArm.org

Quanser Hexapod Helps in Development of a Seismic Isolator at BarcelonaTech

A research group at The Polytechnic University of Catalonia's (also known as BarcelonaTech) Control, Dynamics and Applications Lab (CoDAlab) led by Dr. Francesc Pozo works on a system that can help better protect buildings and infrastructure from earthquakes. The roll-n-cage (RNC) anti-vibration device placed between the building and the ground can reduce motion induced in buildings and bridges by earthquakes or other vibration sources. To model the RNC device, Dr. Pozo and his group uses Quanser Hexapod. Watch this video from their lab:

In this application, the researchers attached a force-torque sensor to the upper plate of the Hexapod. The sensor measures the force and torque of the ball placed on the sliding surface. The group developed two control algorithms to control the position of the ball and place it in the middle of the platform as quickly as possible: a standard PID control and a fuzzy-logic control.

"I consider Quanser as one of the leading companies in the field of design and manufacture of systems to help instructors to teach," says Dr. Pozo, "but these devices can also be used to test control algorithms." His research group is using several other Quanser devices, such as Shake Table II to generate a horizontal motion to modeland identify a MR damper attached to the Shake Table surface.

To learn more how Quanser platforms can help you validate your control research, download this whitepaper.

A Field Trip to the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute

Our host, Dr. Geoff Fernie, TRI Director

As a kid, I always loved field trips, and could enjoy a few extra ones volunteering for my kids' school ones. Now, when the boys claim its embarrassing to have a parent around on such occasions, Quanser helped. Partnering and collaborating with the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, Canada's largest academic health sciences centre, for several years, the whole company got invited to visit the Institute and see how we are contributing to the great research going on in there.

The CEAL motion simulator

TRI is home to one of the world's most advanced rehabilitation facilities - Intelligent Design for Adaptation, Participation and Technology (iDAPT). The centerpiece of iDAPT is the Challenging Environment Assessment Lab (CEAL), a huge underground research lab with a 6 DOF hydraulic motion simulator where researchers can study interactions between people and their environment. 

Entering the WinterLab payload

Quanser partnered with TRI on CEAL development  - our QUARC real time control software is actually at the heart of this unique lab, controlling the motion simulator. I had read about CEAL previously, but seeing it in real life is really impressive. Several "payloads" or chambers simulating different environments and conditions can be put on the motion simulator to perform various research projects. 

2 DOF Gantry and safety harness

To protect the people actually performing tests, a safety harness is mounted on the roof. This is also a contribution of the Quanser team - our engineers designed an active robotic system that follows a person's movements around the chamber in a non-intrusive manner.

Inside the StreetLab

We had an opportunity to check some of the payloads, including the WinterLab that can simulate different conditions such as cold, wind, snow drifts and ice. It can simulate cold and icy sidewalks really well!

Another interesting payload we saw was the StreetLab, with a high res, 180-degree field-of-view curved visual projection screen combined with a treadmill interface and a wheelchair simulator.

We also visited other TRI research labs, and were amazed by the work they do. It was quite inspiring for all of us visitors from Quanser to see the real-life applications of our technology, skills and expertise. Definitely a recommended field trip for high school kids, and sorry, boys, I am volunteering for that one!

Latest Control Validation Techniques to be Highlighted at SICE 2013

If you are planning to be at this year’s SICE Annual Conference in Nagoya, Japan, we invite you to attend the September 14^th workshop titled “Advanced Test Rigs and Validation Platforms for Control Systems”. Presented by Quanser, National Instruments (NI) and Nanzan University, this workshop offers an overview of the latest control theory validation techniques being used in Japan and globally for a range of advanced control research applications.

The workshop will be led by Dr. Isao Takami of Nanzan University and Dr. Tom Lee of Quanser. Dr. Takami, a specialist in control, systems and reliability engineering will show how Nanzan University researchers use Quanser - NI technology to validate their research in Robust Control, Adaptive Control and Particle Swarm Optimization.

Dr. Lee, Quanser’s Chief Education Officer, will discuss how researchers in North America are using Quanser – NI technology to validate their work in applications such as Aircraft Dynamics and Rehabilitation Robotics.  Dr. Lee will also discuss “Applications in Education” by giving examples of immersive visualization techniques that bring control experiments to life as real-life hardware-in-the-loop applications.

This conference workshop promises to be a stimulating look at the latest trends in testing and validating advanced controls research projects. See you at Nagoya University on Saturday, September 14^th, 1 p.m. to 4:15 p.m!

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.

What is the Most Efficient Way to Validate Your Control Research?

All around the world, researchers in such areas as flight control, unmanned vehicles, biomedical and rehabilitation robotics, haptics, industrial robotics and automation and more are using the Quanser platform as their most efficient means of developing, prototyping and refining their systems to make them ready for implementation or production.

Dr. Nejat Olgac demonstrates his research on time-delayed systems using the Quanser linear servo system at the ACC 2012 Conference.   

Why are so many of your peers choosing the Quanser platform? The reasons, with numerous supporting research examples, are found in our latest whitepaper, “The Quanser Platform for Control Systems Research Validation”, by Michel Levis, M.A.Sc., Applications Engineer, and Tom Lee, Ph.D., Chief Education Officer, both of Quanser. 

The paper presents a number of theoretical and application research examples from various institutions that have deployed Quanser equipment to validate their research in such key control research areas as Adaptive Control, Nonlinear Control, Robust Control, Optimal Control, Intelligent Fuzzy Control and System Identification.

To download a copy of the whitepaper, click here.

Research and Education

In 1987, as a co-op placement, I was hired by the University of Waterloo’s Engineering Education Research Center to work on a variety of projects to enhance the effectiveness of engineering education. Over thirty years later, I continue to be fully immersed in this most interesting of fields.

I use the word “interesting” ambiguously. Of course it is interesting in the sense that the work we do appeals to me. But it is also interesting in the proverbial “may you live in interesting times” sense. 

Research in engineering education is too often a contradiction in many institutions. The word research, more often than not, applies to those familiar, hard-core technical activities where we derive one equation or another, or concoct a novel configuration of obscure theoretical concepts, to achieve some equally obscure functional goal. Research into education, however, often draws upon an interesting mix of engineering sciences and technology, and social science methodologies, and as a consequence such research tends not to be celebrated works among the core discipline-based technical societies.

The ASEE Conference is an ideal showcase for inventive solutions in engineering education.  Above: a stylized view of the Helicopter - Car Chase Challenge presented at the Quanser Innovation Hub.

ASEE: Focused on Research into Improved Engineering Education

The one exception is the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). A large part of this venerable society’s existence focuses on the promotion and enrichment of formalized research into the improvement of engineering education. 

This past June, the ASEE held its annual meeting in Atlanta and drew upwards of 4000 academics to share their respective passion for engineering education. As in previous years, Quanser made a significant contribution, including our conventional display, our Innovation Hub in which we showcased the next rev of our visual hardware-in-the-loop application, and a variety of session activities that related to a range of contemporary topics in the field.

In many ways, the ASEE conference is the ideal showcase for the inventor spirit within Quanser. Here, the participants genuinely relish seeing weird new ideas and putting our collective imagination to the test. And this was the intent of the Quanser Innovation Hub.

The Quanser Innovation Hub: Fun Can Lead To An Effective Learning Experience

Our Innovation Hub was well received and sported a new mantra that we conceived for this conference: Imagine. Think. Compute. Build. The demonstration tied a two player video game – a helicopter pilot (the chaser) and a car driver (the chasee) – with a real time control loop tied to a Quanser 2 DOF Helicopter and the new QUBE™-Servo products. 

Not only did we engage the audience with the richness of experience, but we also invited real students from the University of New Mexico to showcase their contributions in the development of this system. Overall, we wanted to illustrate how fun can lead to a much more rigorous and effective learning experience.

Visitors to the Quanser Innovation Hub could hardly believe this helicopter - car chase challenge was actually a rigorous, control learning experience. Watch the video below to see their reaction.  

Another highlight was the proliferation of Quanser applications among other vendors. In addition to our two showcases, we had friends from National Instruments, Dassault Systemes, and Maplesoft among others, demonstrate unique applications of Quanser equipment married to their respective offerings. This resulted in a diversity of views and uses of Quanser devices in creative and innovative ways.

A Forum for Passionate Debate

Aside from the exhibits and the demonstration of the engineering education community’s technical capacity, the ASEE is also renowned for its ability to catalyze very passionate discussions and debates on education and education methodologies.

For me, some of the highlights include a session that I was invited to on the topic of the “Flipped” classroom -- i.e., let students learn the basics using the many off-campus media options now available, and use valuable on-campus time for direct engagement with faculty, and group activities. This, of course is the reverse of the traditional approach at a university.  

It was a great opportunity for me to reflect on the greater role that hands-on labs will have in the very near future. In a flipped world, one of the best things that an educator can do is to use the on-campus time to allow students to work with real systems and real complexity and of course that’s where Quanser can make a significant contribution.

Researching a Common Language to Communicate Complex Engineering Concepts

I also was impressed by a particular student poster presentation by Chirag Variawa, a current Ph.D. student in Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto. He presented his dissertation topic entitled “An Automated Approach for Finding Course-specific Vocabulary”. His research essentially developed an algorithmic way of identifying and managing a proper lexical and semantic foundation for the highly specialized courses, – in human-understandable terms, find a better way to establish a common language to communicate complex engineering concepts. 

As much as I like very multidimensional, richly layered approaches to education, a robust and consistent vocabulary is one of those things that seems to make all the difference in any complex, human-to-human endeavor, but is sometimes disregarded in pedagogical circles as somewhat pedantic and inelegant. I was delighted to see this young man transform the pedantic into a genuinely interesting project.

Flashing back to the late 80’s, the ASEE annual conference was also the very first time that a company (the legendary DEC in this instance) paid me to stand at a booth and demonstrate interesting things. That experience was the first time that I was able to connect the dots between my life as a student, to my emerging life as a researcher, and a foreshadow of my life as a citizen and professional. 

Yes, the optimal design of C² continuous parametric surfaces may look great on an academic CV (this was my dissertation topic by the way), but applying the same level of intellectual vigor on a topic that one is really passionate about, that is important to a broad cross-section of society, and often triggers activities that are genuinely fun, is ultimately, for me, the best research. I am very glad that the ASEE continues to support and celebrate such activities.

- Tom Lee

Chief Education Officer, Quanser

To learn more about Quanser's Innovation Hub presentation, click below.

Researchers Discover the Potential of the Quanser Platform at ACC 2013

Every year the American Control Conference (ACC) brings together a large and diverse group of engineering researchers and industry practitioners. Ideas are shared, challenged and debated so, clearly, the importance of this gathering cannot be overstated. 

For us at Quanser, it is a unique opportunity to learn about the latest controls research being conducted in every corner of the globe from the very men and women doing the research. For the conference delegates, it is a valuable opportunity to start conversations investigating ways Quanser can assist them in advancing their work.

Visitors to the Quanser booth examine examples of the Quanser platform in action.

A Diverse, Adaptable Research Platform Is At Your Service

Our booth at ACC 2013 was our “storefront window”. Within its limited space, it was designed to answer the question, “How is Quanser relevant to you?”, by giving visitors a starting point to understand how varied and multi-functional the Quanser platform is.

To demonstrate that point, we showcased a selection of both simple and complex experiments, starting with the low-cost, all-in-one QUBE™-Servo; and culminating with the “Iron Bird” - a Hardware-in-the-loop rapid prototyping device consisting of the Quanser 3 DOF Gyroscope and the HiQ avionics sensor board. Simulating a Quanser Qball UAV, the Iron Bird is an important incremental step towards deploying a fully functional and stable unmanned aerial system. 

These demonstrations revealed the range and quality of the Quanser platform, and were the starting points for a many one-on-one conversations with booth visitors about how our platform could serve their research. They saw that the Quanser platform is a wide-ranging, modular system of hardware and software that allow users to drop in blocks that talk to hardware, create a unique control system, then rapidly test and refine it using the software of their choice, be it MATLAB®/Simulink® or LabVIEW™.

The Quanser 3 DOF Gyroscope is a key element of our “Iron Bird” concept demonstration that caught the attention of many of our booth visitors. 

Researchers weren’t our only booth visitors. Educators saw the QUBE-Servo and its modern, mix-and-match courseware as a cost-effective path to retrofit an undergraduate control lab. The QUBE also impressed people outside the academic sphere. A number of industry practitioners, including Ford Motor Company, General Electric and others, found the QUBE so interesting they are considering using it to teach or reinforce control concepts within their companies.

At ACC 2013, we learned a great deal about the new paths researchers are taking. They in turn learned about the vast and varied Quanser research platform. Ultimately our booth visitors saw how thoroughly we could be counted on to help them advance their control research and educational goals.

To learn more about how the Quanser Platform helps validate control systems research, click here.

Learn How Quanser Control Platforms Help Researchers Validate Their Research at ACC 2013

If you are planning to attend this year’s American Control Conference in Washington, D.C., later this month,  we invite you to visit Quanser at Booth 19. It will be an excellent opportunity to talk to one of our representatives about your research and how you can validate your theoretical findings using Quanser systems.

The Quanser booth attracted a wide range of researchers at last year's American Control Conference in Montreal, Canada.  

You can learn about the most trusted platforms for control systems research and teaching– over 80 high-precision plants that cover an extensive range of applications and control research topics, including nonlinear control, adaptive control, robust control, optimal control, intelligent control and system identification.

More than 2500 universities around the world already rely on Quanser solutions because of their precision, repeatable dynamics, open architecture and modular design. Ultimately, these solutions allow researchers like you to focus more time and resources on core research instead of building and maintaining “do-it-yourself” test beds.

As the world leader in developing control systems plants for research and education, Quanser is well-positioned to help you validate your research in the most effective and efficient manner possible. Please visit  us at Booth 19 to discuss your research needs and how Quanser can assist you in meeting them. 

A New Paradigm in Time Delayed Systems Research Is Validated with a Quanser Linear Workstation

For more than 10 years, Dr. Nejat Olgac from the University of Connecticut has focused his research on time delayed systems and specifically on a unique paradigm called the Cluster Treatment of Characteristic Roots (CTCR). Using key mathematical features of Linear Time Invariant Time Delayed Systems (LTI-TDS) first recognized under a CTCR paradigm, Dr. Olgac and his team can now identify stability islands of multiple-delay structures in the time-delay domain. Basically, if a linear time invariant time delayed system is contaminated with multiple, rationally independent delays, the researchers from the University of Connecticut can tell what delay composition will cause stability of the system.

Quanser's Linear Inverted Pendulum (IP02) system was utilized by Dr. Nejat Olgac of the University of Connecticut in his ongoing research on Time Delayed Systems. The IP02 system was used to validate a unique paradigm called the Cluster Treatment of Characteristic Roots. (CTCR).

To validate the CTCR Paradigm, Dr. Olgac used Quanser’s Linear Inverted Pendulum (IP02) system. With four patents already issued and a fifth one on the way, the research of Dr. Olgac and his team from ALARM Laboratory has a wide range of applications that extend from the machine tool industry to high speed milling and jet engine design.

At the 2012 American Controls Conference, Quanser hosted Dr. Olgac and his colleague Dr. Rudy Cepeda-Gomez, who presented their Inverted Pendulum Stabilization with Two-Delays and CTCR Paradigm research. Watch the video below to learn more.

Set Your Research Up For Success

As a professor of engineering, some of the biggest demands on your time are preparing students to graduate with industry-ready engineering skills; and conducting innovative research in your area of expertise.

Versatile, cutting edge tools.  Wherever your interests lie, Quanser’s vast array of tools are designed to rapidly bridge the distance between theory and experiment. We provide mechatronics plants, modular systems and control design tools appropriate for research at all levels.  All are robust, reliable and built to perform.

Our systems consist of open architecture hardware you can use to test your theory while working within your existing lab.  Combined with that is Quanser’s QUARC real-time design software. It enables you to obtain accurate, repeatable results while saving remarkable amounts of research time. 

One such example is found in recent rehab work done by Professor Marcia O'Malley and her team from Rice University in Houston, Texas. To see how Professor O’Malley of Rice University established the promise of her R & D rehab project early on and secured additional funding by using cutting edge Quanser tools, click here.

The RiceWrist is a device designed to help rehabilitate people with spinal-cord injuries. 

Quanser’s rapid prototyping software and control hardware sped the
development of the RiceWrist. Speedy development was instrumental in the project establishing its validity and receiving additional funding. 
Photos courtesy of Prof. Marcia O'Malley

Over 20 years of expertise in controls at your disposal.  From research inception to completion, Quanser engineers are valuable resource persons you can lean on. They’re completely familiar with all our tools because they conceived and built them.  So when graduate students or lab assistants move on, you never lose the continuity of our support.

Our engineers can also aid in the research design or help you choose the components you require to build the best integrated rapid controls framework for your project. So whether it requires months or years, you can rely on Quanser’s ongoing support.

Semesters go by all too quickly and you need to make the most of the all-too-limited research resources available to you. To fully leverage those resources, you may wish to consider the tools, expertise and support available to you from Quanser.  It could be the best way to set up your research for success.

To discuss ways Quanser can help set up your research for success, contact us at info@quanser.com.

QUARC® Helps Researchers Bridge The Language Barrier and Grow

If you’re a MATLAB®/Simulink® user who is considering upgrading your research lab, it may be prudent to take some time to thoroughly review your short term and long term project goals. What is the state of your lab right now?  Are students engaged, motivated and excited about your lab? Where do you want it to be in the future?

Quanser’s experiments could definitely be part of a modular, incremental, budget-friendly solution.  But don’t overlook another valuable building block to accelerating your research and moving it forward: Quanser’s QUARC® control design software. QUARC works seamlessly with MATLAB/Simulink and offers you deep capabilities that are rarely fully exploited. 

Professor Aman Behal of the University of Central Florida's Electrical Engineering Department is a case in point. He took advantage of QUARC's Rapid Control Prototyping capability to save programmers months of development time because it bridges the gap between your simulations developed in MATLAB/Simulink and the real-time controller required to drive real hardware.

 Dr. Behal and his research assistant found that QUARC control software's ability to link

"incompatible" programming languages saved them many months of costly development time.

Because QUARC proved such a timesaver for Professor Behal, he began to consider how some of Quanser’s other building blocks – hardware such as the Rotary Servo systems – can be utilized in his other capacity as a teacher.

For more details on Professor Behal’s experience with Quanser and with QUARC, click here.

The Better the Lab, the Better the Student

When Professor Kelly Cohen joined the University of Cincinnati’s Aerospace Engineering Department, his goal was to attract better students and ultimately, better researchers. The key, he felt, was to ensure his lab had new, hands-on equipment that he and his students could count on.  He found Quanser’s experiments fit the bill exactly. 

One of the Quanser experiments in Professor Cohen's lab is the 2 DOF Helicopter.
This is just one of the hands-on controls experiments that is attracting better students
 to the University of Cincinnati's Aerospace Enginineering program.

They excited his students because the hands-on approach helped them grasp control concepts quicker.  In addition, since Quanser’s solutions were turn-key, Professor Cohen was able to get his lab up and running quickly.  The equipment's modular design gave the lab real flexibility to teach multiple experiments. He soon planned on choosing more modules to add even more depth to his teaching and research lab. Everybody won as Professor Cohen built his lab, his students deepened their understanding of control concepts and, inevitably, the quality of his available researchers increased.

To find out more about Professor Cohen's lab and how it assists his efforts to attract better researchers, click here.

Accuracy Soars, Research Costs Stay Grounded Using Quanser HIL Solution

Two of the most valuable benefits of Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) development are increased research accuracy and dramatically decreased research costs. Recent work supervised by Professor Manfredi Maggiore of theDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto amply underscore that fact. Professor Maggiore spoke with us recently after a visit to Quanser headquarters.

Quanser: In terms of teaching and research, you’ve worked with Quanser experiments and solutions for a number of years. What is the recent high-level problem you were trying to solve or investigate?
Professor Manfredi Maggiore: My M.A.Sc. students, Farid Zare Seisan and Ashton Roza, have developed a method to control the position of a class of autonomous aerial vehicles (e.g., quadrotor and coaxial helicopters). We were particularly interested in testing this approach on a coaxial helicopter steered using a moving mass actuator.

A 3D representation of Professor Maggiore's concept helicopter
using QUARC's 3D visualization tools.

Quanser: What was the methodology you used to tackle the problem?
Prof. Maggiore: Developing helicopter prototypes is expensive and time-consuming. Additionally, significant discrepancies exist between the actual behaviour of the helicopter and that of its mathematical model. Such discrepancies are so relevant that they can invalidate a theoretical control design. One of the main causes of the above discrepancies is the uncertainty in the models of sensors and actuators.
Concerning sensors, it is well-known that the estimate of the helicopter attitude using IMU (inertial measurement unit) measurements and complementary filters is noisy and inaccurate. With regard to actuators, the aerodynamic models typically used to model the lift generated by propellers are overly simplified, and do not take into account the motor dynamics and a number of aerodynamic effects. For our coaxial helicopter, we imagined that the moving mass actuator would limit the performance of the closed-loop system, but we had no concrete idea of the extent of this limitation.
We wanted to test our controllers in a realistic scenario that would take into account sensor and actuator limitations, but without having to spend the time and money to develop a full helicopter prototype. We used the Quanser 3 DOF Gyroscope experiment to do a hardware-in-the-loop simulation of the coaxial helicopter.

Shown:  HIL rapid prototyping device consisting of Quanser's 3 DOF Gyroscope
retrofitted with Quanser's HiQ avionics sensor board.

This experiment works like this. A microcontroller with IMU is mounted on a plate placed at the centre of a fully actuated 3 DOF gyroscope. The gyroscope is driven by the Simulink simulation of the coaxial helicopter. In turn, the simulation receives inputs from real sensors and actuators. Specifically, the feedback in Simulink is implemented using actual IMU measurements, and the helicopter dynamics are affected by the actual displacement of the moving mass actuator, which is driven by the reference signals generated by the position controller in the Simulink diagram.

                                                                                                                      - Quanser Video 

Quanser: In using the hardware-in-the-loop platform to study the problem, did you discover anything about the problem that you would not have seen otherwise?
Prof. Maggiore: We realized that the moving mass actuator had a time delay of the order of 0.1 seconds which severely limited the stability and performance of the closed-loop system. This forced us to detune their controller to make it less aggressive. We also realized that although the sensor noise can be significant, it does not pose a stability problem. It only induces a steady-state error in the helicopter's position.
The moral of the story for us was that the design of a moving mass actuator is crucial, and it should be improved before trying to develop a prototype of a coaxial helicopter. The HIL scenario allowed us to do that quickly and without incurring major research costs.

Quanser: What benefits do you see for using this type of hardware-in-the-loop system in the classroom, undergraduate or graduate, or for research?
Prof. Maggiore: The hardware-in-the-loop system described above (the Quanser 3 DOF gyroscope with an external moving mass actuator) allowed us to take an intermediate step between a purely theoretical analysis and the full implementation of a coaxial helicopter with a moving mass actuator. Quanser’s real-time control software, QUARC, provides the ideal development tools to implement such a system from theoretical analysis to hardware-in-the-loop simulations, and even full hardware implementation.
On the research side, more work can be done to exploit this platform. For instance, one could include actual motors and propellers in the hardware-in-the-loop simulation to test the impact of the motor dynamics on the closed-loop system. On the teaching side, one could use the Quanser 3 DOF gyroscope to present an evocative simulation of a UAV, one in which certain practical issues are taken into account.

Funding a full UAV lab for teaching courses is a challenge for many professors, especially when you consider the maintenance involved in running such a lab and the safety precautions that would have to be adopted. All in all, we were extremely happy with the 3 DOF Gyroscope experiment, and we learned a great deal from it.

Quanser: Thank you, Professor Maggiore.


Dr. Manfredi Maggiore is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, in Toronto, Canada.  He has been  associated with the University's Systems Control Group since September, 2000.