Overview:

This laboratory serves our basic lecture courses in systems and control, introducing students to a variety of concepts in signal analysis, servocontrol, open and closed loop system analysis, compensator design, and state variable feedback. Digital control system analysis and design are also taught, with an emphasis on linear discrete-time systems, robotics, electromechanical systems, and advanced nonlinear discrete-time controls. Many senior projects and special projects are also supported in this facility. All courses taught in this lab utilize the SIM342 integrated laboratory environment, written by Cal Poly faculty and students specifically for this facility. SIM342 runs on networked PCs with IEEE488 bus interfaces, to facilitate the importation and analysis of data from the digital oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer, for overlay and comparison capability with simulated and calculated results generated by the program. This fully integrated environment of electromechanical system analysis and design is constantly being improved and developed by faculty and staff, to provide the best possible laboratory educational environment.

Current Problems with the Laboratory:

An immediate need exists for an upgrade of the basic equipment in the lab. Improved PCs are needed for experiment development and debugging by faculty. The existing hand built 68HC11 digital control boxes are barely adequate for the needs of EE 342 and EE 472. They presently contain only 512 bytes of memory. New, more powerful and commercially supported digital controllers, with modern development tools, would help to make the lab more relevant to modern industry. Improved electromechanical plants, such as robotic arms, and pneumatic or hydraulic servo control systems would be a great improvement over the existing Motomatic Control System Laboratory apparatuses, which have been in use as the primary instructional plant since 1980. Only one network printer presently serves all eight stations - at least two are needed for efficient student progress in lab courses. The existing digital oscilloscopes on each bench were the unfortunate result of a low-bid state acquisition - students find them extremely difficult to work with, and they are very difficult to interface for IEEE488 communications. Modern full-featured digital oscilloscopes would greatly improve efficiency and capabilities in this lab.

Suggested Equipment Needs:

Our equipment needs in this lab are extensive, in large part due the unusually large number of students and number of different lab courses conducted in this facility. The following acquisitions would be very helpful:

• Texas Instruments DSP boards ('DSK') and software development tools ('Code Composer Studio') for planned digital controllers, to be built in-house.
• PCI-bus analog control interface cards for PC's, to facilitate PC-based digital control experiments.
• PC-based computer vision components for vision-based robotic positioning experiments: 8 progressive scan video cameras, 8 real-time PCI frame grabbers, C++ Development Environment.
• Two instructional development PC's with multimedia capabilities, including video acquisition and editing capabilites.
• An extension of our 10-station licenses for Matlab and MatrixX.
• Various types of industrial robotic and similar electromechanical assemblies, especially those including computer vision components, for new digital control laboratory experiments.
• Nine analog-computer control simulators, such as the EB-6 series by Electrodynamic, Inc., to supplement the existing Motomatic rotational kinematic apparatuses.
• Basic electronic and mechanical hand tools for design and development of student robotic projects, such as our entires in the annaul IEEE Micromouse Competition (first place winners in regional competition, 1995 and 96), and Cal Poly's own Roborodentia competition.