A Project Based Learning Approach for development of an experimental setup and a simulator for position and velocity control of a DC motor with interactive and pre-calculated parameters.

Abstract

Abstract The project involves developing an experimental setup and an interactive simulator that will control the angular position and velocity of an inertia wheel coupled to a DC motor. The project was developed using the knowledge from the subjects studied in the 4th year of the Control and Automation Engineering course at the Instituto Mauá de Tecnologia, including Object-Oriented Programming, Database, Instrumentation, Embedded Systems, and Control Systems. This work will allow for experimenting and understanding important concepts related to these disciplines. To achieve this, this project will have several phases, including the development of the virtual environment, which will have two stages. The first stage involves interactive control of the gains of a PID controller that will control the position in degrees (°) and the velocity in rotations per minute (RPM). The second stage involves analyzing the system's behavior with pre-designed controllers for controlling only the position in degrees (°). In both stages, there will be the visualization of the simulation results. The second phase involves building the necessary hardware to perform what the simulator requires, including specifying the components and their interconnections, and finally, programming the system (firmware and software-GUI) to operate according to the specifications provided by the simulator user. At the end, examples of projects will be presented as well as their evaluation, and focused on ABET, how these projects can be used to evaluate students' outcomes.