Abstract
We present a realization of a didactic robot environment for robot PUMA 560 for educational and research purposes. Robot PUMA 560 is probably the mathematically best-described robot, and therefore it is frequently used for research and educational purposes. A developed control environment consists of a robot controller and teach pendant. The advantage of using a personally developed solution is its open structure, which allows various tests and measurements to be performed, and that is highly convenient for educational and research purposes. The motivation behind the design of this personal didactic robot control environment arose from a survey for students after the first Summer School on Mechatronic Systems. The student questionnaire revealed severe discrepancies between theory and practice in education. Even though the primary purpose of the new control environment for robot PUMA 560 was research, it was established that it is a viable lab resource that allows for the connection between theoretical and industrial robotics. It was used for the duration of four Summer Schools and university courses. Since then, it has been fully integrated into International Burch University’s Electrical and Electronics Engineering curriculum through several courses on the bachelor and master levels for multidisciplinary problem-based learning (PBL) projects.
Highlights
Control systems and teaching are in many ways analogous
Mechatronics is a multidisciplinary scientific area, a confluence of other disciplines such as mechanics, electronics, automatic control, computer technology and information technologies [9,10], and as such it was recognized as an umbrella scientific discipline for the Regional Summer School entitled “Modern Mechatronic Systems” at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of East
PD has has been repeatedly repeatedly applied applied in in the past to the control courses and easy to implement structurally, PD has been repeatedly applied in the past to the PUMA and related robot arms in research, industry and education
Summary
Control systems and teaching are in many ways analogous. They both rely on feedback, both to demonstrate their effects and to conduct the process. Neither works well in the presence of many uncertainties, and neither prefers a black box, an unidentified closed system, over a white box, a transparent model with known dynamics and well-defined parameters. Teaching using modern open architectures [1,2] is beneficial [3], either via students opening previously closed architectures themselves [4] or via architectures already designed for them in software [5] or hardware [6]. When compared to process control education [7,8], mechatronics and robotics add more degrees of freedom and generalize students’ understanding of both the control and physical environment. Mechatronics is a multidisciplinary scientific area, a confluence of other disciplines such as mechanics, electronics, automatic control, computer technology and information technologies [9,10], and as such it was recognized as an umbrella scientific discipline for the Regional Summer School entitled “Modern Mechatronic Systems” at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of East
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