Dave Chandler, a CompE Masters student, created the Control System Plant Simulator (CSPS) [a shorter paper] as his thesis work. It is a low-cost, easy to use way to do system simulations. Its intended use was in class settings as a substitute for the licensed MATLAB software which most often is used for control system simulation. The CSPS executes transfer functions that model the dynamics of a system. You used the CSPS as part of the real-time control class project. The CSPS has flexible interfaces to allow the addition of customized user interfaces and data acquisition boards. There are two examples of text-based user interfaces implemented in C and Visual Basic.
A team assigned this topic area will decide on a system to model using the CSPS. You do not have to create the transfer function models yourself. You can reference models that you find somewhere else. The team will implement an interface that provides full control of the simulation, and shows the operation of the system in a graphical way. In addition, the team will implement a controller on the purplebox to control this simulation. This controller can be as simple or complex as your time permits. One limitation on the complexity of the plant is the I/O capacity of the Data Translation DT9812 data acquisition board which you will use. It has two channels of analog output, and eight channels of analog input. An intention for this project is to create a simulation that would be interesting to use for the real-time control project in a future term.
The team should let its imagination wander to find an interesting, though simplified, physical system to model, such as an, inverted pendulum, filling water tank, active car suspension, brake controller, a jet engine, or whatever. A team may choose to continue development of the cruise control simulation or ball and beam simulation that were started by teams in a previous term. Both of these need improved models that better simulate the physical systems, improved user interfaces, and better display of the system operation.
A zipfile containing the following material:
$Id: RTSysSimulation.html 140 2013-03-31 05:23:18Z jrv $