Control Basics for Mechatronics

John Billingsley

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9781000927412
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Mechatronics is a mongrel, a crossbreed of classic mechanical engineering, the relatively young pup of computer science, the energetic electrical engineering, the pedigree mathematics and the bloodhound of Control Theory.

All too many courses in control theory consist of a diet of 'Everything you could ever need to know about the Laplace Transform' rather than answering 'What happens when your servomotor saturates?' Topics in this book have been selected to answer the questions that the mechatronics student is most likely to raise.That does not mean that the mathematical aspects have been left out, far from it. The diet here includes matrices, transforms, eigenvectors, differential equations and even the dreaded z transform. But every effort has been made to relate them to practical experience, to make them digestible. They are there for what they can do, not to support pages of mathematical rigour that defines their origins.

The theme running throughout the book is simulation, with simple JavaScript applications that let you experience the dynamics for yourself. There are examples that involve balancing, such as a bicycle following a line, and a balancing trolley that is similar to a Segway. This can be constructed 'for real', with components purchased from the hobby market.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Author
• Chapter 1 Why Do You Need Control Theory?
• Chapter 2 Modelling Time
• Chapter 3 A Simulation Environment
• Chapter 4 Step Length Considerations
• Chapter 5 Modelling a Second-Order System
• Chapter 6 The Complication of Motor Drive Limits
• Chapter 7 Practical Controller Design
• Chapter 8 Adding Dynamics to the Controller
• Chapter 9 Sensors and Actuators
• Chapter 10 Analogue Simulation
• Chapter 11 Matrix State Equations
• Chapter 12 Putting It into Practice
• Chapter 13 Observers
• Chapter 14 More about the Mathematics
• Chapter 15 Transfer Functions
• Chapter 16 Solving the State Equations
• Chapter 17 Discrete Time and the z Operator
• Chapter 18 Root Locus
• Chapter 19 More about the Phase Plane
• Chapter 20 Optimisation and an Experiment
• Chapter 21 Problem Systems
• Chapter 22 Final Comments
• Now Read On
• Index