Project for system dynamics

1 Objectives

The objective of this project is to develop and assess your proficiency in the following:

- Converting application-specific requirements into standard control sys- tems specifications such as settling time, overshoot, or steady-state error.

- Deriving models suitable for control system design using first principles or experimental data.

- The design of feedback controllers for systems exhibiting challenges such as nonlinearity, constraints and multiple inputs.

Beyond mere technical proficiency, the project is also designed to develop and assess your "higher-level" engineering skills, in particular, you must demonstrate that you can:

- Analyse a practical problem and determine which techniques from the subject material (and prerequisites) are most appropriate.

- Compare different design approaches, and justify a particular approach
based on theory and evidence (e.g. simulation results)

- Clearly and concisely explain your approach and the results you achieved, with appropriate use of diagrams, graphs, images, and mathematical expressions.

- Prepare an engineering report of professional standard.

2 Details

There are four projects as follows:

- Thrust vectoring control of a vertically landing rocket, for aeronautical students;

- Steering control of an autonomous car, for mechanical students;

- Control of a robot arm, for mechatronics students;

- Artifical pancreas based on feedback control, for biomedical students

These projects have been catered to suit the individual streams. Further, this will help develop links between the content from lectures and the actual engineering problems that you may face in the industry or in your later studies.

You must attempt only the project that corresponds to the stream of the degree program you are enrolled in.

The grading will be based on the following breakdown:

- Technical correctness and proficiency of design: 40%
- Critical thinking and analysis: 40%
- Presentation and clarity: 20%

Note: everything could be technically perfect and you can get only 40%!

Steering Control of an Autonomous Car

Your task is to design a steering controller that allows the vehicle to change lanes, and to track a lane stably. The design must satisfy the following requirements:

- The vehicle will use a cruise control to drive at a nominal velocity of 60km/hr.

- The vehicle must be able to change lanes when prompted.

- During lane changes, the vehicle must not intrude other lanes.

- Your mechatronic engineering team has provided you with an electri- cally actuated steering mechanism. Imperfection of this actuator must be accounted for.

- The steering angle (δf ) has a physical limit of ±10?.

In doing so, consider the following:

- Generate a model of the steering actuator experimentally. You may want to consider using sine-wave inputs and estimating a model from the resulting outputs.

- Derive a linearized model of the equation of motion. Hint: You may want to use a suitable nonlinear coordinate change to simplify the process.

- Design a controller for the requirement, using method of your choice.

- Bonus: Because our coordinate frame is with respect to the world, it is difficult to consider more complicated scenarios such as cornering. Consider attaching the coordinate frame to the road, so that the x-axis is tangential to the road. Considering road variations as disturbance input, design a controller to maintain the road centre.

- Prepare a technical report of professional standard. This will be presented to other engineers working on the project.

Attachment:- mech.zip