Arduino Architecture Research Articles

A Robot-Sumo student competition at UNICAL as a learning-by-doing strategy for STEM education

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>The continuous growth of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education has set intense pressure on well-established engineering subjects, with a trend of replacing them with less demanding theoretical contents. This paper describes a recent activity with bachelor students to stimulate STEM education via a Robot-Sumo Competition. Students are grouped in teams to design, build and program their robot sumo robots. This course was implemented for the first time at University of Calabria (UNICAL). As a first attempt has been made with six teams each made of six students. Some seminars are delivered to the students to let them understand the assignment and its basic requirements. Then, they are expected to start developing a concept design and competition strategy. Then, they work on a 3D CAD modelling to design their own robot, whose main components will be later 3D printed and assembled. In parallel, the team selects the required sensors and electronic components as based on an Arduino architecture. The robots are completed and programmed for the competition where teams fight to find the most competitive solutions. The competition proves to be highly effective to learn multiple skills with a very practical and stimulating approach.</p>

Arduino Support for Personalized Learning of Control Theory Basics

This paper discusses a possibility how to make learning of control theory basics more interesting for an individual learner. Specifically, an approach of learning by doing is applied when using a low-cost Arduino architecture for each student. As an example of dynamical systems simple RLC-circuits have been chosen. The advantage of Matlab/Simulink support of Arduino platform has enabled students to perform programming tasks from known environment. This paper concentrates on a limited part of the control theory, namely the static and dynamic characteristics. Particularly, in this paper we will present how to construct different RLC circuits, measure following characteristics: static I/O characteristic, step, impulse and frequency responses and identify their parameters.

Arduino Based IOT Platform for Remote Monitoring of Heart Attacks and Patients Falls

Internet of things (IoT) is a networking concept that allows connection of various smart devices. This concept plays a huge role in the healthcare industry. The developed system is a working prototype for real-time monitoring of patient falls and heart attacks. The process of developing this system included an architecture, which was built using Arduino UNO and Arduino NANO along with pulse sensors and accelerometer sensors. The main idea is to collect health-related data from time to time and the collected data is made available using a real-time interface called Thingspeak. With the help of this process, the person can be monitored from time to time without any hassle. The proposed system also makes use of delivering notifications at the time of emergency using the GSM technology, which is embedded with the Arduino architecture. This system will be of greater help to elderly people, people suffering from Frankenstein disease or people who are in a history of getting heart attacks due to genetic disorders.

Low-Cost Open-Source Voltage and Current Monitor for Gas Metal Arc Weld 3D Printing

Arduino open-source microcontrollers are well known in sensor applications for scientific equipment and for controlling RepRap 3D printers. Recently low-cost open-source gas metal arc weld (GMAW) RepRap 3D printers have been developed. The entry-level welders used have minimal controls and therefore lack any real-time measurement of welder voltage or current. The preliminary work on process optimization of GMAW 3D printers requires a low-cost sensor and data logger system to measure welder current and voltage. This paper reports on the development of a low-cost open-source power measurement sensor system based on Arduino architecture. The sensor system was designed, built, and tested with two entry-level MIG welders. The full bill of materials and open source designs are provided. Voltage and current were measured while making stepwise adjustments to the manual voltage setting on the welder. Three conditions were tested while welding with steel and aluminum wire on steel substrates to assess the role of electrode material, shield gas, and welding velocity. The results showed that the open source sensor circuit performed as designed and could be constructed for <$100 in components representing a significant potential value through lateral scaling and replication in the 3D printing community.

An artificial immune system-based anomaly detection method applied on a temperature control system

Artificial immune systems are algorithms inspired on biological immune systems and are being considered as one of the most promising nature-inspired strategies for optimisation and anomaly detection. In another way, the most common form of feedback in all areas, where automatic control is necessary, is the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control. In this way, it is important to design methods in order to monitor PID controllers against failures, since a faulty PID controller may give rise to malfunctions or even breakdown, damages or accidents. In this paper, an immune system-based anomaly detection system applied to PID controller is presented. It has developed a complete PID controller based on Arduino architecture in order to control temperature of a heater. This system is interconnected to a LabVIEWTM-based tool, running on a personal computer (PC), which executes all phases of the proposed immune-based anomaly detection system. In this way, faults occurring in the system can be detected online. Experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed immune detection system.

Control Practices using Simulink with Arduino as Low Cost Hardware

This work describes a Simulink lab practice using Arduino as low cost hardware. A Shell must be developed in order to adapt Arduino signals to the real plant, consist of a DC motor. With Arduino architecture and with open hardware a cheap Data Acquisition card has been build. Several tests have been done to validate de full system and a frequency study has been completed in order to know the possibilities of the proposed architecture in the control of new other plants.Finally, a lab exercise using the Simulink and Arduino system is proposed to the student of engineering bachelors. The exercise consisting of apply the empirical method of Ziegler-Nichols for adjust a PID controller, testing this controller over the experimental plant.