The Mechatronics Control Kit for education and research

We discuss the use of the Mechatronics Control Kit from Mechatronic Systems, Inc. for control education and research. The Mechatronics Control Kit can be configured with several distinct plants, including a simple DC motor, an inertia wheel pendulum and a Pendubot. The digital electronics are fully integrated and include a Texas Instruments DSP development system, the TMS320C6711 DSK Board (a DSP board with parallel port interface), a PWM output/optical encoder input data acquisition daughter board, a PWM amplifier, and power supplies. We discuss the hardware and software interface and outline a set of experiments that can be performed using this system.