Control and Robotics Laboratory
This laboratory is run in conjunction with the applied mechanics laboratory so that the antivibration tables can be used for laser measurements of robot parameters. A small 5 axis serial teaching robot and controller is in the laboratory along with several research robots. The main thrust in the laboratory is research into parallel robots and lightweight flexible robots.
The parallel research machines comprise two 6 axis Stewart platforms, a 3 axis spherical co-ordinate robot, and a 3 axis Cartesian co-ordinate Delta robot. The last two machines stand several meters high and weigh up to 300kg. The electric drivers range from small DC, or step motors, up to 2 kw step motors. Research into brushless DC motors and hydraulic actuators is also carried out.
Two planar robots with three rotational joints each and flexible links float on a glass-topped table using air bearings. The joints are actuated with brushed DC motors and endpoint measurements are obtained using a 2D CCD camera. This facility is used to study control of lightweight robots and co-operating robots with structural flexibility.
A separate facility consists of rotational and translational mechanical apparatuses which are used for undergraduate teaching in classical and modern control theory. Four sets of each are present with interchangeable masses/inertias and springs. Each apparatus is interfaced to a PC with a sophisticated user interface which permits a great variety of control systems to be implemented.