Control systems engineering increases in importance ever more rapidly with the appearance of self-driving vehicles, novel aerial vehicles, medical robotics, and countless consumer products. These applications require not only engineers with hands-on experience in control systems, but also very importantly, in the management and control of electric motor actuators and precise position sensors. Control systems engineering design skill relies on understanding of both theory and practice. However, understanding of control systems practice through hands-on-experience has not been available to all control systems students in the past.
The Integrated Rotary Inverted Pendulum is a hands-on, low-cost control system personal kit that may be owned by every student. This is enabled by the STMicroelectronics L6474 integrated Motor Controller that permits users to configure the primary Stepper Motor actuator with a diverse range of performance characteristics. Users can now explore and design motor system dynamic response to meet objectives including energy demand while yet optimizing control system performance.
An important feature of the Integrated Rotary Inverted Pendulum system is its multiple-input-multiple-output architecture and the opportunity to provide experience in classic control and modern state-space control. Development includes Mathworks Matlab® interfaces that provide design, animated display, and configuration of the real-time platform. Development is also available with direct access to the open source real-time C code implementation operating the platform.
This presentation will describe and demonstrate the Integrated Rotary Inverted Pendulum system kit that has proven to be compelling to students for entry level through advanced instruction.
Developed by: Professor William Kaiser, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of California, Los Angeles; and Marco De Fazio and Giorgio Mariano, STMicroelectronics, Burlington, Mass.