Answer 1

A synchro is an electromagnetic transducer commonly used to convert angular position of shaft into an electrical signal.It is commercially known as a selsyn or an autosyn.It basically consists of a synchro transmitter (generator) and a synchro receiver(control transformer).

Schematic of Synchro Transducer The complete circle represents the rotor. The solid bars represent the cores of the windings next to them. Power to the rotor is connected by slip rings and brushes, represented by the circles at the ends of the rotor winding. As shown, the rotor induces equal voltages in the 120° and 240° windings, and no voltage in the 0° winding. [Vex] does not necessarily need to be connected to the common lead of the stator star windings.

A synchro or “selsyn” is a type of rotary electrical transformer that is used for measuring the angle of a rotating machine such as anantenna platform. In its general physical construction, it is much like an electric motor . The primary winding of the transformer, fixed to the rotor, is excited by a sinusoidal electric current (AC), which by electromagnetic induction causes currents to flow in three star-connected secondary windings fixed at 120 degrees to each other on the stator. The relative magnitudes of secondary currents are measured and used to determine the angle of the rotor relative to the stator, or the currents can be used to directly drive a receiver synchro that will rotate in unison with the synchro transmitter. In the latter case, the whole device (in some applications) is also called a selsyn (a portmanteau of self and synchronizing).

stepper motor

There are two distinctly different ways of using stepper motors in control systems.One is the open loop mode and other is the closed loop mode.

The stepper motor is a digital device whose output in shaft angular displacement is completely determined by the number of input pulses.Consequently,there is no need for a feedback device to determine the position of motor shaft and ,therefore,of the load connected to the motor shaft.We can use an open step servo system with the same accuracy as that of a closed loop analog system.

The relation between a synchro and stepper motor is that the stepper motor is just a special type of the synchro. A stepper motor is designed to rotate through a specific angle (called a step) for each electrical pulse received from its control unit.

If we need to operate the stepper motor in closed loop(positional feedback)mode,we need to use synchros for error operate a gate controlling the pulses from a pulse generator

Answer 2

Incremental encoders

Incremental encoder produce an output which is a pulse for each increment of resolution but these make no distinction between increments.

The disc has alternate opaque and transparent sectors of equal width which is etched by means of a photographic process on to a plastic disc(slots are cut out if it is a metal disc).As the disc rotates during half of the increment cycle the transparent sectors of rotating and stationary discs come in alignment permitting the light from the LED to reach the sensor and thereby generating an electrical pulse.For fine resolution encoders ,multi-slit mask is often used to maximize the reception of shutter light.

The waveform of the sensor output of an encoder is generally triangular or sinusoidal depending upon the resolution required.Square wave signal compatible with digital logic are obtained from it by means of linear OPAMP and comparator.Alternate transparent/opaque sectors of the disc and the square wave pulse form (obtained after signal processing) in synchronous with the disc is shown in figure.The resolution of such an incremental encoder is given as:

Basic resolution=360/N

N:number of sectors of disc;each sector is half transparent and half opaque.

In a dual channel encoder two optoelectronic channels are employed.These are installed in the same rotating disc and the mask but displaced at 900 to each other such that the two pulse output signals have a relative times phase displacement of 900electrical.A circuit that senses the relative time phase of the outputs of the two channels determines the direction of rotation of the disc or the encoder shaft.

The output of the encoder is fed to a counter which counts the number of pulses;the count being the measure of angle(or translation)through which the encoder shaft has rotated.By sampling the counter at regular intervals by means of clock pulses it is possible to compute the speed of encoder shaft.

Reference:

Control System And Engineering(Nagarath And Gopal).

www.wikipedia.com

Answer 3

POLES AND ZEROS

Poles and Zeros of a transfer function are the frequencies for which the value of the transfer function becomes infinity or zero respectively. The values of the poles and the zeros of a system determine whether the system is stable, and how well the system performs. Control systems, in the most simple sense, can be designed simply by assigning specific values to the poles and zeros of the system.

Physically realizable control systems must have a number of poles greater than or equal to the number of zeros. Systems that satisfy this relationship are called proper. We will elaborate on this below.

Let’s say we have a transfer function defined as a ratio of two polynomials:

H(s)=N(s)/D(s)

Where N(s) and D(s) are simple polynomials. Zeros are the roots of N(s) (the numerator of the transfer function) obtained by setting N(s) = 0 and solving for s.

Poles are the roots of D(s) (the denominator of the transfer function), obtained by setting D(s) = 0 and solving for s. Because of our restriction above, that a transfer function must not have more zeros then poles, we can state that the polynomial order of D(s) must be greater then or equal to the polynomial order of N(s).

Effects of Poles and Zeros

As s approaches a zero, the numerator of the transfer function (and therefore the transfer function itself) approaches the value 0. When s approaches a pole, the denominator of the transfer function approaches zero, and the value of the transfer function approaches infinity. An output value of infinity should raise an alarm bell for people who are familiar with BIBO stability. Tthe locations of the poles, and the values of the real and imaginary parts of the pole determine the response of the system. Real parts correspond to exponentials, and imaginary parts correspond to sinusoidal values.

The stability of a linear system may be determined directly from its transfer function. An nth order linear system is asymptotically stable only if all of the components in the homogeneous response from a finite set of initial conditions decay to zero as time increases.In order for a linear system to be stable, all of its poles must have negative real parts.

Reference:

Web.mit.edu

Adding zero to a system

EFFECTS OF ADDING A ZERO ON THE ROOT LOCUS FOR A SECOND-ORDER SYSTEM

We can put the zero at three different positions with respect to the poles:

1. To the right of s = –p1

2. Between s = –p2 and s = –p1

3. To the left of s = –p2

We now discuss the effect of changing the gain K on the position of closed-loop poles

and type of responses.

(a) The zero s = –z1 is not present.

For different values of K, the system can have two real poles or a pair of complex

conjugate poles. This means that we can choose K for the system to be overdamped,

critically damped or underdamped.

(b) The zero s = –z1 is located to the right of both poles, s = – p2 and s = –p1.

In this case, the system can have only real poles and hence we can only find a value

for K to make the system overdamped. Thus the pole–zero configuration is even more

restricted than in case (a). Therefore this may not be a good location for our zero,

since the time response will become slower.

(c) The zero s = –z1 is located between s = –p2 and s = –p1.

This case provides a root locus on the real axis. The responses are therefore limited to

overdamped responses. It is a slightly better location than (b), since faster responses

are possible due to the dominant pole (pole nearest to jaxis) lying further from the j

axis than the dominant pole in (b).

(d) The zero s = –z1 is located to the left of s = –p2.

This is the most interesting case. Note that by placing the zero to the left of both

poles, the vertical branches of case (a) are bent backward and one end approaches the

zero and the other moves to infinity on the real axis. With this configuration, we can

now change the damping ratio and the natural frequency (to some extent). The

closed-loop pole locations can lie further to the left than s = –p2, which will provide

faster time responses. This structure therefore gives a more flexible configuration for

control design.

We can see that the resulting closed-loop pole positions are considerably influenced by

the position of this zero. Since there is a relationship between the position of closed-loop

poles and the system time domain performance, we can therefore modify the behaviour of

closed-loop system by introducing appropriate zeros in the controller.

cincinnati n servo mechanism

Cincinnati Milacron built large industrial robots primarily for welding industry. It was one of the first companies to change from hydraulic to electric robots. Milacron pioneered the first computerized numerical control (CNC) robot with improved wrists and the tool centre point (TCP) concepts. The first hydraulic machine, the introduced in 1978. It closely resembled the General Electric Man-mate, ITT arm, and other predecessors (Sullivan 1971). Constructed of cast aluminium, it is available in two models of 6-axes revolute jointed arms. The largest, the T3-776, uses ballscrew electric drives to power the shoulder and elbow pitch. The ballscrews replaced the hydraulic cylinders originally used on the T3 robots. The elbow is a classical example of intermediate drive elbow. The same techniques, only upside down, appear in the shoulder. Shoulder yaw is provided by the standard bullgear on a base mounted motor drive. End users have discovered that ballscrews are not sufficiently reliable and are pressuring for an alternators. The eventual disappearance of ballscrews in industrial robots seems inevitable.
CONTROL SYSTEM
The T3 robotic arms is controlled using a Hierarchical Control System.A Hierarchical control system is partitioned vertically into levels of control. The basic comand and control structure is a tree, configured such that each computational module has a single superior, and one or more subordinate modules. The top module is where the highest level decisions are made and the longest planning horizon exists. Goals and plans generated at this highest level are transmitted as commands to the next lower level where they are decomposed into sequences of subgoals. These subgoals are in turn transmitted to the next lower control decision level as sequences of less complex but more frequent commands. In general,the decisions and corresponding decompositions at each level take into account: (a) conrmands from the level above, (b) processed sensory feedback information appropriate to that control decision level, and (c) status reports from decision control modules at the next lower control level.

The figure shown above depicts the schematic block diagram of the integrated control structure as configured on the Cincinnati Milacron T3 Robot. The system is configured in the hierarchical manner and includes five major subsystems:(1) The Real-Time Control System (RCS)(2) The commercial. T3 Robot equipment( 3 ) the End-Effector System(4) The Vision System(5) The Watchdog Safety System
The Real-Time Control System as shown in figure is composed of four levels:(1) The Task Level(2)The Elemental-Move Level(3) The Primitive Level(4)The T3 Level.
The Task, Elemental-Move and Primitive levels of the controller are considered to be Generic Control Levels. That is, these levels would remain essentially the same regardless of the particular robot (commercial or otherwise) being used. The T3 Level, however ,uses information and parameters particular to the T3 Robot and is, therefore, unique to the T3 Robot. The Joystick shown provides an alternate source of commands to the Primitive Level for manual control of the robot and is not used in conjunction with the higher control levels .The T3 Controller shown in figure is part of the T3 Robot equipment as purchased from Cincinnati Milacron. This controller is subordinate to the T3 Level of the RCS and communicates through a special interface.The End-Effector System consists of a two fingered gripper equipped with position and force sensing .The gripper is pneumatically actuated and servo controlled by a controller which is subordinate to the Primitive Level of the RCS. There are three sensory systems on the robot:
1. The finger force and position sensors on the gripper which report data to the End Effector Controller2. The 3 point Angle Acquisition System which reports data to the T3 Controller, the T3 Level of the RCS and to the Watchdog Safety System3. The Vision System which reports data to the Elemental-Move Level of the RCS.4. Of the sensor systems, the vision system is obviously the most complex. It performssophisticated image processing which requires substantial computational time.

The Watchdog Safety System does not fit directly into the hierarchical control structure. It is an independent system which monitors robot motions and compares them to previously defined limits in position, velocity and acceleration. The Watchdog System has the power to stop the robot if any limits are exceeded and consequently monitors both the mechanical and control systems of the robot.
PARTS OF THE REAL TIME CONTROL SYSTEM(1)Task LevelThe Task Level interfaces with the Workstation Level above it and the Elemental-Move Level below it. In the current configuration, the Task Level has no direct interfaces with sensory systems. The Task Level receives commands from the Workstation Level in terms of objects to be handled and named places in the workstation.For example, the task might be to find a certain part on the tray at the load/unload station, pick it up and put it in the fixture on the machine tool. This task could be issued as one command from the Workstation Level to the Task Level of the RCS.

(2)Elemental-Move LevelThe E-Move Level interfaces with the Task Level above it and the Primitive Level below it. In addition, the E-Move Level interfaces with the Vision System from which it acquires part position and orientation data. The E-Move Level receives commands from the Task Level which are elemental segments of the Task Level command under execution. These are generally single moves from one named location to another. If a part acquisition is involved, data from the Vision System is requested to determine the exact location of the next goal point. The E-Move Level then develops a trajectory between the new goal point and its current position. A trajectory maybe simply a straight line move to the goal point or a more complex move, involving departure, intermediate and approach trajectories. These trajectories can be constructed using pre-stored trajectory segments or data acquired from the Vision System. If no pre-stored segments are found for the desired move and the use of vision data is not appropriate, then a straight line path to the new goal point is calculated.
(3)Primitive LevelThe Primitive Level interfaces with the E-Move Level above it and the T3 Level and End-Effector Controller below it. The Primitive Level is the lowest level in the RCSwhich is robot or device independent. Subsystems subordinate to the Primitive Level are considered to be at the device level in the control hierarchy. In this system, these subsystems or devices are the robot and the end-effector. T3 The Level shown in figure is not a true control decision level by itself and could be logically combined with the T3 Controller at the device level. The robot and end-effector are, therefore, at the same control decision level subordinate to the Primitive Level. Additionally, the Primitive Level interfaces with the Joystick. The Joystick is a peripheral device which is used for manual operation of the robot. Using the Joystick, the operator can control robot motion in several coordinate systems (world, tool or individual joint motions). Under Joystick control the human operator assumes the higher level planning and control duties normally handled by the E-Move and Task Levels when the robot is operating automatically. The actual Joystick unit has groups of small joysticks, rotory and rocker switches dedicated to each coordinate system. These are configured such t hat the robot will move basically the way the lever is pushed or the switch turned that the robot will move basically the way the lever is pushed or the switch turned, giving the operator a relatively feel for the motion produced ’The Primitive Level receives commands from the E-Move L e v e l in terms of goal points in Cartesian space.These points differ from those received by the E-Move Level from the Task Level in that they are not named locations and therefore assume no knowledge of the Workstation layout. These points are typically more closely spaced than those at the higher Levels although this is not necessarily the case.
(4) T3 LevelThe T3 Level interfaces with the Primitive Level above it and the commercial Cincinnati Milacron T3 Robot Controller below it. In addition there is a sensory interface which supplies the six individual joint angles. The T3 Level is so named because elements of it are peculiar to the T3 Robot. From a control hierarchy point of view the T3 Level does not constitute a logical control decision level but is infact a “gray box” necessary to transform command and feedback formats between the Primitive level and T3 controller.