We can offer you, at a reasonable price, a complete laboratory setup including:
* the plant consisting of a mechanical setup with sensors and an actuator
This setup is extremely useful for
* practicals in all levels of education in open-loop and closed-loop control
* research studies of the control and supervision of a practical industry plant
* Matlab/Simulink applications
The laboratory experimental setup “Airstream and Temperature Control Plant” contains the technical realization of two different control plants (1st-order airstream control plant, temperature control plant of higher order) together with an accompanying actuator.
An axial fan provides an airstream along an inner aluminium tube. A heating element feeds heat into the airstream. Its maximum capacity is selectable by a switch. A manually controllable flap with two distinct positions (open/closed) is mounted near to the fan and allows for a stepwise disturbance of the airstream. The complete mechanical setup is protected against overheating by means of a bimetallic thermorelay. The heat element is switched off at a temperature of 90° Celsius. A PT100 temperature sensor with transmitter detects the temperature of the airstream. The volume of the air flow is measured by a differential pressure transmitter which detects the pressure in front of a metering orifice in comparison with the constant ambient pressure. The two transmitters (industrial standard) are mounted at distinct positions of the tube. The complete mechanical setup is mounted on top of an acrylic base plate.
The accompanying actuator is connected to the mechanical setup by means of a multicore cable. The actuator provides a disturbance of the heating capacity by means of an additional switch. The heating capacity as well as the air flow may be manipulated at the front panel of the actuator either by potentiometers or by external 4 ... 20 mA input signals. The measured signals of the differential pressure transmitter and of the temperature transmitter are provided as 4 ... 20 mA output signals. Two potential-free contacts indicate the position of the flap as well as the setting of the heat capacity. Additional output sockets provide the 24 VDC voltage for external transmitter supply. Any input or output signal is accessible by 4mm (security) sockets.
The laboratory experimental setup “Airstream and Temperature Control Plant” is extremely useful to demonstrate the behaviour of the following control plants:
* a 1st-order control plant by manipulating the volume of the air flow by means of the fan input signal disturbed by the flap.
* a 2nd-order temperature control plant by manipulating the volume of the air flow by means of the fan input signal disturbed by the flap or by manipulating the heating capacity which can be disturbed by means of the switch at the actuator.
After connecting additional external controllers the laboratory experimental setup “Airstream and Temperature Control Plant” may realize the following closed control loops:
* A simple control loop with a 1st-order control plant (Airstream control with uncontrolled temperature).
* simple control loop with a 2nd-order control plant (Temperature control with uncontrolled airstream).
* A cascaded control loop with temperature control and cascaded airstream control.
* Two separated control loops with independant temperature control and airstream control as well as decoupling.
With Option 70-01 an I/UU/I converter box is available, that converts all current inputs/ outputs of the ATC70 in voltage inputs/ outputs (0/10V). The voltage signals are led to a 37 pol. DSUB connector. The converter box comes along with a cable set consisting of colored measurement cables with 4mm safety plugs and a 37 pol. DSUB cable.
The Option 70-02 extends the basic version of the ATC70 by the plug-in card MF634 for a PC with PCIe slot as well as the I/U-U/I converter box from Option 70-01. The associated program running under WINDOWS (XP/ Vista/ WINDOWS 7) is designed for engineering student laboratories or demonstrations. The adjustment of controller parameters or the recording of step responses with respect to set-point changes or disturbances can be selected by means of a menu.
The graphic output of recorded data may be sent to a window. Its content may be printed, saved as a WMF file or copied into the clipboard
By means of the PC plug-in card MF634 of Humusoft the laboratory experiment “ATC70 Airstream and Temperature Control Plant” can easily be integrated in Matlab/Simulink with real-time environment. The user now has the opportunity to test its own controller designs under Matlab/Simulink.
With the Option 70-05 a standard controller program in C++source in combination with library routines for graphic output, controlling the sampling period as well as controlling the PC adapter card is available. The controller program can be modified by the user for research purposes. The Input/Output routines contain among other things the driver for the A/D- D/A converter card which comes with option 70-02. The Borland C++ Builder from V6 is required.
