The Mechanical Engineering Department at Polytechnic University has recently developed a real-time mechatronics/process control laboratory to provide its undergraduate and graduate students a real-world, hands-on experience in modern DSP- and PC-based data acquisition and real-time control. The newly developed facility is equipped with DSP-based systems (e.g., dSPACE-DS1102, Siglab, etc.) and PC-based real-time control boards (Quanser’s MultiQ3). In addition, this new laboratory facility has numerous state-of-the-art experimental testbeds, such as:

• Industrial servos
• 1-DOF inverted pendulum on the cart
• Rotary inverted pendulum
• Double inverted pendulum on the cart
• 2-DOF rotary inverted pendulum
• Magnetic levitation system
• Five DOF open architecture robots
• Rotary flexible link testbed
• Earthquake simulator unit
• Two tank state- and input-coupled liquid level control unit
• 3-DOF under-actuated and fully-actuated helicopters
• Active noise cancellation in a 1-D acoustic duct testbed
• Liquid level and flow control rig
• Liquid temperature control unit
• Chemical concentration (pH) control rig
• Pressure control rig

The upgraded laboratory facilities are used primarily for undergraduate control laboratory (ME325) and occasionally for senior design projects. In addition, controls-oriented graduate courses also use the laboratory equipment for design projects. The laboratory testbeds and the data acquisition and control environment are Internet ready and occasionally our undergraduate and graduate students conduct remote experimentation using these testbeds. In near future, we will test pilot a web-enabled, real-time control environment. Visit the following links for additional details

• ME325 Real-Time Control Laboratory Manual (.pdf file, size:1216KB)
• Equipment Manuals
• Real-Time Experimental Control Workshop

P.S: These links will be updated occasionally to reflect on going developments in the real-time control laboratory. Please bear with us if you encounter any missing links while browsing these pages.

Acknowledgements:

The activities and facilities of the real-time control lab have been/are supported by:

• National Science Foundation: Division of Undergraduate Education
• NASA/NY Space Grant Consortium
• American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers-Dynamic Systems and Control Division
•  Office of The Dean of Engineering, Polytechnic University
• Department of Mechanical Engineering, Polytechnic University