Abstract
Laboratory education in science and engineering often entails the use of test-beds equipped with costly peripherals for sensing, acquisition, storage, processing, and control of physical behavior. However, costly peripherals are no longer necessary to obtain precise measurements and achieve stable feedback control of test-beds. With smartphones performing diverse sensing and processing tasks, this study examines the feasibility of mounting smartphones directly to test-beds to exploit their embedded hardware and software in the measurement and control of the test-beds. This approach is a first step towards replacing laboratory-grade peripherals with more compact and affordable smartphone-based platforms, whose interactive user interfaces can engender wider participation and engagement from learners. Demonstrative cases are presented in which the sensing, computation, control, and user interaction with three motor-based test-beds are handled by a mounted smartphone. Results of experiments and simulations are used to validate the feasibility of mounted smartphones as measurement and feedback control platforms for motor-based laboratory test-beds, report the measurement precision and closed-loop performance achieved with such platforms, and address challenges in the development of platforms to maintain system stability.
Highlights
The pedagogical rationale for hands-on laboratory explorations in science and engineering education is well established and includes improvement in students’ conceptual understanding as well as opportunities to hone design, professional, and social skills [1]
In addition to aforementioned challenges associated with integrating smartphones on laboratory test-beds, we must examine the influence of noise, drift, and time delays on the smartphone-based measurements and their impact on the stability and performance of the system
Results of experiments with the inverted pendulum on a cart (IPC) test-bed will explore the response of a high-bandwidth plant that utilizes smartphone sensing
Summary
The pedagogical rationale for hands-on laboratory explorations in science and engineering education is well established and includes improvement in students’ conceptual understanding as well as opportunities to hone design, professional, and social skills [1]. Mounted smartphones have been used for obstacle avoidance of a marine vehicle [22] and for the stabilization and control of unmanned aerial vehicles [23] These studies use the device camera to capture video and computer vision techniques such as template matching, feature tracking with random sampling consensus, and color segmentation to enable the autonomous guidance and navigation of the vehicle. In this role, smartphones use embedded sensors to detect obstacles in the environment, sense collisions, estimate the pose of the vehicle, and compute vehicle velocities.
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