Hardware Textbooks for Modeling and Control

We will develop a library of design labs our software GUI/Server/Microcontroller routines, and a new, multi-chapter hardware textbook that is easily constructed from a list of commodity parts and one of our specially-designed dual voltage-to- PWM driver boards (less than $150, about the size of a thick textbook). We plan to cover a "chapter" of the hardware textbook each week, in “half-flipped” classroom style. The technical ideas will be presented in lecture but most of the learning will take place in the end-of-week design labs. Each week we will present students with a different control problem, using copter- levitated arms, magnetic levitation, PWM audio amplifiers, and flexible motor-driven arms, each of which can be set up using the textbook.