A software platform for implementing digital control experiments on the Quanser DC motor control trainer

This paper describes a system that allows students studying digital control to quickly implement and test digital controller designs. Toward this goal custom C code was written for the PIC microcontroller installed on Quanserpsilas DC Motor Control Trainer. A MATLAB graphical user interface was created that allows for simple interaction with the microcontroller for the purposes of testing the controller performance. Examples that implement Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) angular position and Proportional-Integral (PI) angular rate controllers are presented.