Pan/Tilt Motion System for Control Education
Ricardo G. Sanfelice, University of Arizona
Project supported by Mathworks
Website developed by Colin Lasharr, University of Arizona
Contents
- Introduction
- Instructions for Building the System
- Installation Instructions
- The Arduino Board
- Simulink
- Initial Parameter Identification
- System Identification for Zenith Component
- System Identification for Azimuth Component
- Running An Experiment
- Tracking and Error Data
- Resources
Introduction
The device is composed of a rotating base with an elevation arm to orient the attitude of energy collectors, which are modular. The base of the device is linked to a drive train that is powered by a small servo motor and provides the propulsion to orient the attitude of the device. The elevation arm is connected to another small servo motor which provides the propulsion to orient the altitude of the device.
The system is composed of an Arduino control board that receives input from the Simulink controller in real time, and then sends output to the motors. There are two stepper motors which control the zenith and the azimuth angles. These motors position the base and arm of the device.
Instructions for Building the System
Installation Instructions
The device is powered by a USB port. It communicates with MATLAB through a generic USB to Serial driver which comes with Windows operating system. At this time, the target board operates on Win32 platforms only. It has been tested with MATLAB Release 2011a. The installation process includes the following steps:
- Plug in the Arduino USB into the desktop to recognize the new hardware.
- Go to Start -> Control panel -> System -> Hardware -> Devicemanager -> Ports(COM & LPT), to recognize the new hardware communication port.
- Install the Arduino supporting drivers from the following link:http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/Windows#toc4
- Setup the device with the drives following the instructions on the following page:http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/UnoDriversWindowsXP
- Install the Arduino, Matlab supporting files to initialize the controller board from the following link: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/32374
- Make sure the files associated with the current model are pointed towards the Matlab files downloaded in the previous step.
- Execute the following initialization files: arduino.m and install arduino.m (from the downloaded matlab folder ArduinoIO -> simulink)
- Run the model with desired inputs
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