Low-cost air levitation laboratory stand using MATLAB/Simulink and Arduino

Abstract

ŎƬ˘˹ŘǚŘ ʊǔDŽ ȭŘ ǘɁʁ˘˿ʊǜŘȭǔƬ ˘ Řʁǜ˿ǘˁȦˁ ȭŘ ˹ŘʁˁȭǘŘƋǒ ǚǔƋƬȭƋǖǔ ,ʁƬŘǜǔ˸Ƭ ,ɁȧȧɁȭʊ ʢȭŘȭǔƬ ŘˁǜɁʁʊǜ˹Ř ʯƖ1 . IntroductionStudent access to laboratory experiments is critical in education because engineering is a practical discipline. Universities give huge financial support in providing traditional laboratory stands for physics, mathematics, robotics and other fields of science. Advanced learning technologies have emerged to enhance learning, support new inventions and improve interest in engineering studies. Laboratories are a common part of engineering education, therefore more and more universities began to build more low-cost laboratory stands. Research shows that hands-on laboratory experiments help students understand and apply course material [1,2]. A classroom demonstration device is always very helpful in teaching engineering courses particularly for control engineering and robotics. With the rise in popularity of using low-cost hardware there are new alternatives to teach control engineering in practice. Some affordable laboratory devices for engineering education have already been developed [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11], such as the Mobile Studio IOBoard used in introductory circuits courses [6]. One of the devices which are able to teach a wide range of algorithms used in control engineering are levitation laboratory stands. Levitation project systems have long been used in control system laboratories [12][13][14]. Levitation is a process in which an object is suspended against gravity by a physical force. Many methods can be used as the levitating medium, including magnetic repulsion, viscous liquids, sound waves and air currents. Interesting example of levitation is based on air flow. Air levitation uses an air stream provided by a fan to obtain the levitating force on a ping-pong ball. This phenomenon stems from Bernoulli principle [15]. Controlling the ping-pong ball is a challenging task and it requires a control system. The air levitation control system is considered as an interesting and impressive device for educational purpose. These projects are appropriate for lab stations, but they require custom construction of the stand and dissipate considerable power. This kind of projects are good teaching tools and help to teach control theory. In addition, the system is simple and small that is very convenient to be carried from class to class. Moreover, it requires a little space and little amount of power. This kind of laboratory stand can be an environment for implementing a variety of controllers, for instance: proportional-integral-derivative controller, hybrid controller, predictive controller, fuzzy logic controller and others which are used for nonlinear systems.In this paper, portable and affordable laboratory stand is designed to support the accompanying curriculum for the introductory controls course in control engineering at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin. In particular, a description of the air levitation laboratory stand is presen...

Development of Control Experiments for an Online Laboratory System

“…It is a simple one input two output system, that consists of a transparent vertical tube with a fan mounted to its base. Various similar plants already exist and have been successfully introduced to different online laboratory systems or work as standalone remote experiments [12][13][14][15][16].…”