02.15 · Student project
Ball and beam
A system for controlling the position of a ball on a tilting beam (ball and beam): the ball stops at any chosen point along the beam.
About the project
The aim was to build a system for controlling the position of a ball on a tilting beam. The ball position is sensed with a membrane potentiometer, and the beam is tilted by a servo motor through a crank linkage. The system can move the ball to any position along the beam.
How it works
- Model: we derived a mathematical model of the system and designed control algorithms in simulations.
- Controllers: we implemented a cascade PID controller and a state-space LQR controller on the PLC.
- Test: we checked the control performance and compared the two algorithms.
| Type | Student project, bachelor's thesis |
| Sensor | SoftPot SEN-08681 membrane potentiometer |
| Drive | Mitsubishi HG-KN13J servo motor, MR-JE-10C servo amplifier |
| Controller | Mitsubishi FX5UC-32MT/DSS-TS PLC |
| HMI | Mitsubishi GT2107-WTSD |
| Controllers | Cascade PID, LQR |
Video
Presentation
