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UTILIZATION OF A DYNAMOMETER/MATLAB ENVIRONMENT WITHIN A LINEAR CONTROLS DESIGN PROJECT

M. Feemster United States Naval Academy Weapons & Systems Engineering Department, Mail Stop 14A, 105 Maryland Ave., Annapolis, MD 21402-5034 E-mail: feemster@usna.edu

ABSTRACT In this paper, a dynamometer setup is coupled with a MATLAB hardware interface to offer an experimental test stand from which students can observe the effects of loading in an electric motor application. The dynamometer system is utilized within a linear systems design project in which the students are required to design a speed tracking compensator while simultaneously ensuring that current limitations for the selected drive electronics are not exceeded.

1 Introduction The Systems Engineering major at the United States Naval Academy has at its core a feedback control system focus. In their junior class year, Systems Engineering majors enroll in the foundational ES307 “Linear Control Systems” course. Within this required, four lecture hour/week course, students learn to analyze the classical transient, steady-state, and stability behavior of dynamic systems under the influence of basic feedback controllers and also study system performance in both the time and frequency domains. In addition, a major portion of the course is devoted to control design techniques for such linear compensators as the proportional, lead, PI-lead compensator that satisfy performance specifications given in both the time and frequency domains.

Typically, one or more design projects are assigned throughout the semester in order place emphasis on various aspects of the course such as system response characteristics and compensator design techniques. Traditionally, many of these projects required only evaluation within a simulation environment since utilizing a hardware prototype may necessitate the development of a proprietary control environment (i.e., microcontroller or digital signal processor platform) and electronics that extend well beyond the scope of the course. However with the emergence of such control oriented software packages as the WINCON environment from Quanser Consulting and their associated linear power amplifiers, custom hardware prototypes can be easily integrated into design projects with relative ease1 (Note: other software interfaces are available that may be successfully employed within an undergraduate laboratory setting2,3) thereby allowing students to test and evaluate their control designs on actual hardware. This interaction with hardware also introduces more advanced topics such as actuator saturation and other nonlinear modeling effects as static friction and load disturbances.

The dynamometer system held interest due to the capabilities of illustrating loading effects on motors. In previous senior capstone design projects, many motor drivers were destroyed due to over

“Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education”

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Feemster, M. (2005, June), Utilization Of A Dynamometer/Matlab Environment Within A Linear Controls Design Project Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--14204