ASEE and ACC Conferences: Different, Yet Similar

Having spent most of my career in the field of engineering education, with the exception of a few years in the mid-90’s, I’ve been to every American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference since the 1994 Conference in Edmonton, Canada. But, as I am relatively new to the field of controls engineering, I had never had the opportunity to attend the American Control Conference.

So, even though it was Father’s Day, I was excited to embark on a 12-day trip to Louisville and Baltimore to attend the 2010 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition and ACC 2010 – the American Control Conference.

On the surface the events were quite different. The ASEE Annual Conference drew over 3,500 attendees and featured what seemed like a couple of acres of elaborate exhibits in the Kentucky International Convention Center. At any one time there were, literally, almost 100 sessions taking place. One had to carefully sift through a myriad of opportunities during the four days to identify areas of greatest personal interest and to keep from becoming overloaded.

Paul Gilbert, Quanser's CEO showing the range of Quanser's experiments to one of the ASEE 2010 delegates.

I found ACC 2010, on the other hand, much more manageable. Compactly housed at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, over four days approximately 1,000 attendees toured a dozen, mostly table-top, exhibits and chose special interest sessions from amongst 22 tracks. Certainly ACC 2010 was still formidable – just not as overwhelming as ASEE.

The prototype of a wind turbine experiment got a lot of attention in Quanser's booth at ACC 2010.

Despite the obvious differences, I found, in essence, the two conferences were very similar. Attendees at both were researchers and academicians dedicated to improving their teaching and advancing the learning opportunities available to their students so as to prepare them for academic and career success and to successfully compete in today’s global workplace.

My days were filled with exciting conversations with professors, department chairs and deans eager to learn about Quanser’s newest education and research-based systems for real-time control design and implementation. Our Innovation Hub, in which we demonstrated our new Qball – a quadrotor for Indoor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Research, drew SRO crowds. At the same time, many educators wanted more information about Quanser’s SRV02 – the base unit of Quanser's Rotary Family – which students at hundreds of universities have used to learn control theory for over 20 years.

As a father I grow increasingly concerned with the world my six-year old son will grow up in. While I missed him greatly over the 12 days, it was heartening to spend the time with educators who share Quanser’s commitment to inspiring and preparing the next generation of engineers – the engineers who will be designing and building his world.

- Alan Jacobs -

Quanser at the ACC

I just came back from 2010 American Control Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. The ACC is the annual conference of the American Automatic Control Council (AACC). This year, the conference had gathered more than 1,000 scientists and researchers from all over the world. Dynamics and control, hybrid systems, adaptive and learning control, powertrain modeling, unmanned vehicles control, green energy, nonlinear systems, and optimization were some of the many topics covered in the conference.

Quanser's expertise in control systems is well known at global control conferences including the ACC. This year, Quanser had an overwhelming and outstanding participation at the conference with astonishing unmanned systems live interactive demo and a three-station booth filled with a wide range of Quanser products. Both the booth and the unmanned systems demo were highly appreciated by the visitors.

At one station of our booth, we were presenting Quanser's servos and inverted pendulum powered by our real-time software QUARC. In the booth just beside this station, The MathWorks was presenting a related experiment: ball and curved beam. This experiment was developed by Dr. Levine at the University of Maryland and it was using Quanser's servo, data acquisition board, and real-time software QUARC. You can see Dr. Levine's experiment in action here.

Ball and Curved Beam Experiment Developed at the University of Maryland

At the second station, we were presenting Quanser's 3 DOF Gyroscope and virtual plant simulators. The non-minimum phase dynamics of the gyroscope attracted quite a few researchers and students. The simulation and visualization of Quanser's Active Suspension plant under QUARC had its own fans and followers as well. The third station was dedicated to Quanser latest haptic device, HD^2. This station attracted some researchers interested in the field of haptics, robotics, and teleoperation. Surgical simulators and interaction with different types of virtual environments were some of the demos presented at station 3.

Quanser’s champion demo at the booth was the prototype of a Wind Turbine experiment. This platform will be part of our company’s green energy product line. It attracted many professors and students to the booth. An iPad was used as a graphical user interface to tune different parameters of the system. The controller and data acquisition was implemented using QUARC. This system is highly nonlinear by nature which makes it a great experimental platform for advanced level research. It can also be used within a linear region for under graduate students.

Please note the Wind Turbine experiment is still under development and is not available for purchase at this time. If you have any comments about this experiment, please contact info@quanser.com

Quanser Booth at the American Control Conference 2010

This year at ACC, Quanser surprised all visitors by presenting the UVS Innovation Hub, an interactive and live demo of Quanser's unmanned vehicle systems. Attracting over 200 delegates, the presentation consisted of our indoor unmanned vehicles lab, Quanser's Qball, and Qbot. During the demo visitors could learn about unmanned technology for both educational and research purposes developed by Quanser. They also got a chance to control our Qball and fly it. Below, I have included a video for those of you who missed the show this year. Quanser's Innovation Hub received overwhelming appreciation and encouragement from 200 people who stopped by.

Quanser interactive UVS demonstration at the American Control Conference 2010

Quanser's Enduring Hero

For the past 20 years, students at hundreds of universities have been learning control theory while doing experiments with the SRV02 - the base unit of Quanser's Rotary Family. This simple experiment has many different add-ons, full curriculum for experiments, and is open-architecture. Over 17 experiments can be performed with the rotary family and researchers are starting to use it more as an experimental platform.

In this video, you get to see the SRV02 up close and learn about what makes it so special.

Video credits to Sunny Ray - director and cinematographer.

Qball UAV flies at the ASEE Quanser Innovation Hub

I have just returned from the 2010 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition in Louisville, Kentucky. This year, Quanser decided to do something a little different from the usual tradeshow booths and exhibits. In addition to our usual booth, we went all out and built a fully-functional indoor lab for flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Quanser's Innovation Hub was dedicated (this year) to demonstrating our Unmanned Vehicle Systems (UVS) Laboratory. The UVS Lab includes the Qball UAV, Qbot UGV, OptiTrack camera localization, and ground station with QUARC real-time control software.

Before the show even started people were lining up to take a look at the Qball flying around its enclosure. Anyone walking by while the Qball whirred and flew around immediately stopped and stared. And when we told people they would have a chance to actually take the controls and fly the Qball during our hourly demos, they got really excited.

Although we didn't have the time to give everybody a try at flying the Qball, dozens of people ranging from grade schoolers to professors got a chance to try it out. It was a really great way to captivate the younger audience members and get them excited about engineering.

Part of the demo was our own technology demonstrations to highlight some of the capabilities of the Qball and the UVS Lab. We got to show some of the nimble flight capabilities of the Qball, its on-board sensors were used to fly over some obstacles, and we also ran fully autonomous missions.

The UVS Lab and Innovation Hub will be

going to ACC in Baltimore next, followed by the Guidance Navigation and Control Conference in Toronto. If you're going to either of these events please stop by and see the UVS Lab and try your hand at flying our Qball! Look forward to more feedback from ACC and GNC and also some videos shot at these events.

-Cameron

Visit Quanser this summer!

Summertime means that many people are off on vacations or traveling to conferences. One great destination is Toronto. Each summer, many of our clients and blog readers stop by this city to visit friends and family or to join peers to discuss the latest developments in their fields.

If you do stop by Toronto, let us know and we'd love to have you over for a visit. There's always something exciting to show on our tours, devices that we cannot hand-carry and demo for you when visiting universities ourselves. So stop by to take a ride on the Hexapod, to perform virtual surgery on the HD^2, or to fly Qball, our unmanned aerial vehicle. Quanser visitors rarely leave without seeing something exciting.

So, pay us a visit! We look forward to seeing you soon.

[video of our invitation for you to visit]

Shout to Sunny Ray, who was manning the camera.

New Controls Technology Presented at ACC 2010

The American Control Conference (ACC) is an annual forum where members of systems and control communities discuss new developments in theory and application of controls and Quanser will participate as always. An active member of the controls community for over 20 years and a big supporter of the annual ACC, Quanser typically demonstrates new technology for peers in academia and industry.

This year, however, we have something extra special for the conference delegates. We will demonstrate new unmanned vehicle technology for indoor research in our Innovation Hub. Delegates will have a unique opportunity to control and navigate a realistic unmanned vehicle mission. A series of 20-minute interactive demos will be presented in the Falkland Room, Harborside Floor. Mark down the times:

Wednesday, June 30 & Thursday, July 1 the demo runs at 9 am, 11.30 am, 1 pm and 3.30 pm

Friday, July 2 you can join us at 9.30 am and 11.30 am

After a live demonstration delegates are welcome to ask Quanser engineers questions about the Unmanned Vehicle Systems Lab.

But the Unmanned Vehicle Systems Lab is not the only innovative platform we will be showcasing at ACC this year. Stop by our booth in the Exhibit Area and experience haptic technology that helps neuroArm scientists in research and development of the second generation of the MRI-compatible surgical robot. You can also see a live demo of 3 DOF Gyroscope, another popular experimental platform used in control labs as far away as Australia to teach advanced control concepts.

Many universities are expanding their course offerings beyond the physical classroom or lab. That is one reason Quanser is now offering Virtual Labs. Come and try the Virtual Lab Paper Machine Experiment to share ideas on how advanced control education can benefit from this new teaching method.

Virtual Labs increase the hands-on teaching capacity for large classes, facilitate remote learning and student self-exploration.

And last, but not least: at ACC we'll give a glimps into what green technology will be available soon for teaching and research. ACC conference delegates will get an exclusive preview of the Wind Power Experiment. Come by and talk to Dr. Apkarian or members of our engineering team about the control challenges and green technology.

ACC delegates will get an exclusive preview of the prototype of Quanser's Wind Power Experiment.

Quanser R&D Teleoperation Setup in the Hands of NeuroArm Scientists.

Last week, I had the chance to visit great people and hi-tech facilities at the Health Research Innovation Centre at University of Calgary. This is where some best surgeons and researchers in the world are collaborating on a second generation of neuroArm, the world's first MRI-compatible surgical robot capable of both microsurgery and image guided biopsy. Using this ground breaking technology, the surgeon operates the robot from a computer workstation within the strong magnetic field of the intraoperative MRI environment. The team is led by Dr. Garnette Sutherland, professor of neurosurgery in the University of Calgary and a Calgary Health Region top neurosurgeon.

NeuroArm is one of the few robots in the world that is used for a procedure called telesurgery. In most telesurgical operations, the surgeon controls the motion of a slave robot within the patient’s body by operating a master robot and using visual feedback and image guidance.

A tele-surgical setup can provide surgeons with minimally invasive approaches and a new level of dexterity and precision. In addition, it gives them access to environments that a surgeon’s hand can not normally reach such as MRI environments or sub-millimeter regions within the patient’s body. At a more advanced level, it will allow the skills and expertise of specialized surgeons like Dr. Sutherland to be available to patients worldwide.

The complexity of the surgical operations necessitate immersive interaction with the patient’s body. It has been proven that haptic feedback along with visual feedback adds significant advantages to surgical performance. In other words, the forces sensed by the robotic tools inside patient’s body can be applied back to the surgeon through the master robot in the form of kinesthetic and tactile cues.

Adding the sense of touch to a telesurgical operation introduces many new challenges to mechatronics engineers and control scientists. As a pioneer in the field of Haptics and Teleoperation, Quanser is collaborating with neuroArm engineers in a close relationship. Mr. Alexander Greer, neuroArm project’s robotics engineer is gathering high-end robots at their advanced lab facilities. His aim is to conduct research on haptically enabled telesurgery.

Quanser Teleoperation Setup in Health Research Innovation Centre at University of Calgary

In my trip to Calgary, I delivered one of Quanser’s latest R&D teleoperation equipment. The system consists of our augmented 7DOF high definition haptic device and our latest open-architecture articulated robot. The end-effector of the robot is equipped with a custom made tool designed and manufactured at Quanser. Programming and control design is through our real-time software QUARC. The system is also equipped with high definition force torque sensing. Quanser expertise in mechatronics and control has resulted in an advanced bilateral teleoperation system with high fidelity force feedback. This system will be used by skilled neuroArm engineers for further research and development.

Quanser Teleoperation Setup in Health Research Innovation Centre at University of Calgary