Cyber-physical laboratory based on LEGO Mindstorms NXT - first steps

Abstract

A description and first implementation results for a "Cyber-physical laboratory" project performed jointly by the students of St.Petersburg State University and those of St.Petersburg Phys&Math Lyceum 239 are presented. The goal of the project is to create a complex of robotics and mechatronics networked devices based on LEGO Mindstorms NXT for application in universities and in high schools. 978-1-4244-4602-5/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE

A remote lab for multi-robot experiments with virtual obstacles

“…The setup consists of four vehicles and a supervisor which monitors the system and manages the user interaction. Robots are built with the LEGO Mindstorms technology, which is widely used for teaching purposes (Filippov and Fradkov [2009], Valera et al [2011]) and research activities (Benedettelli et al [2010]), allowing for the rapid prototyping of small footprint vehicles with limited cost. A web page allows users to interact with the lab and a graphical interface provides the online visualization of the selected experiment.…”

A LEGO Mindstorms multi-robot setup in the Automatic Control Telelab

“…In this respect, the LEGO technology has a leading position, thanks to its low-cost and simplicity (e.g., see Gawthrop and McGookin [2004], Fradkov and Albertos [2009]). Originally designed as an educational toy for children, by now LEGO Mindstorms kits have been used to build a variety of experimental setups falling in very different areas ranging from signal processing (Heck et al [2004]), to mechatronics (Valera et al [2009]), cyber-physical laboratories (Filippov and Fradkov [2009]), to name just a few.…”

A Multivariable Hot and Cold Water Tank for an Undergraduate Control Engineering Laboratory

“…However, despite the large amount of research, there are few undergraduate laboratory experiments dealing with cyberphysical systems that have been described (see [3] and [4] as notable exceptions). Of the few that exist, many (or most) have minimal physical dynamics, such as [5], [6], [7], and [8].…”