Arizona State University
Interactive Modeling, Simulation, Animation, and Real-Time Control (MoSART) Research Projects: Getting Involved
Table of Contents
Purpose
Interactive MoSART Research Projects: A List
Project Pre-requisites
Available Facilities
Material to be Learned By Student Researchers
Getting Credit, Senior Design, and MS Thesis Topics
Publishing, Travel, and Skills
Getting Started
References
Hello System and Control Friends,
This semester, graduate and undergraduate students will be able to work on a variety of
exciting Interactive Modeling, Simulation, Animation, and Real-Time Control (MoSART) research projects. The projects are described below.
Purpose
The purpose of each project is to create a "system-specific" Interactive MoSART C++/Windows NT-Based Environment, which combines a user-friendly windows interface with sophisticated simulation and animation engines, to permit system and control designers to visualize and evaluate overall system performance via interactive graphics and 3D animation. Users would be able to select system model, control law, reference command, disturbance, and sensor noise structures via interactive pull-down menus. Model and control law parameters may be altered in real-time in order to properly investigate distinct scenarios.
Please let students know about the exciting possibilities which the following projects offer.
Interactive MoSART Research Projects List
- Exothermic Reactor
- Jet Engines
- Semiconductor Fab Control
- Semiconductor Diffusion Process
- Molecular Beam Epitaxy Machine Control
- Flexible Inverted Pendulum
- Ball and Beam System (see here too)
- Seesaw-Dual Cart-Pendulum System
- Mobile Robotic Manipulators in an Uncertain Environment
- Twin Lift Helicopter System
- General Spring Mass Dashpot (SMD) Systems
- Flexible Structures
- High Performace Aircraft
- Submarines and Other Underwater Vehicles
- Intelligent and Autonomous Vehicles
- Missile-Target Engagement
- The Evasive Monkey and Learning Algorithms
- Resource Allocation Algorithms
- Electromechanical Actuator Environment
- Low earth orbit (LEO) and Geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) Multi-mission Satellites
- Space Vehicles
- Biological Systems
- Interactive Multivariable Control System Analysis and Design Environment
- Interactive Distributed Control Environment
- MATLAB Interactive Computer Aided Lessons (ICALs)
- Interactive Circuit Analysis Environment
- Integration of Interactive Distributed Learning Technologies
- Distributed Computation
- A-Lab library
Project Pre-requisites
Students are expected to be familiar with some C, the Microsoft Windows
operating system, and differential equations. Knowledge of signals and sytems, and system and
control concepts is highly desirable. While it is desirable that students possess pcs at home, it is unnecessary. Students without pcs can use our new facilites (see below).
Students who are productive will be loaned a state-of-the-art pc after one (1) year. Students will be able to build on the work previous MoSART students. STUDENTS ARE ENCOURAGED TO WORK IN TEAMS!
Available Facilities: The MoSART Facility
Students who work on MoSART projects will have access to our new Modeling,
Simulation, Animation, and Real-Time Control (MoSART) Facility. Currently,
the facility has 20+ Pentium PRO 200MHz Windows NT Workstations. We will be
adding another 25 PII/MMX 266 MHz Windows NT Workstations to the facility.
These systems recently arrived at ASU. Recently, we have received over
$500K in resources for our MoSART Facility from companies such as Intel,
Microsoft, Boeing, Integrated Systems, CADSI, Knowledge
Revolution, and SEMY Engineering.
Material to Be Learned By Students
Participating students will be exposed to the following topics:
- Modeling of Complex Dynamical Systems
- Simulating Dynamical Systems using MATLAB/SIMULINK/MATRIX-X and Microsoft
Visual C++
- Animation of Dynamical Systems using Microsft Direct 3D, Working Model, DADS/Plant
- Design of real-time control systems using MATLAB/SIMULINK/Control System
Toolbox/MATRIX-X, etc.
- Object Oriented Programming (OOP) using Microsoft Visual C++
- Microsoft Windows NT Operating System
- Real-time Data Acquisition via National Instruments Data Acquisition Boards
- Virtual Instrumentation (e.g. LabView)
- Implementation of Real-time Control Systems
- System Identification; i.e. use of real-time input/output measurements to develop models
- Implementation of Real-time Adaptive Learning Algorithms
- Implementation of Distributed Computation Algorithms
- Writing technical papers and publishing in refereed journals
- Presenting work at technical conferences
- Career opportunities in the area of systems and controls
Students are expected to pick up programming skills from members of our MoSART team. Students will learn about
system modeling, simulation, analysis, design, real-time control, and
other "technical" stuff from the project director (Professor Rodriguez) as well as from team members.
Elective Credit, Senior Design, Honor's Credit, and Master's Topics
Motivated students will be permitted to get senior elective for
their work via the university's Independent Study Option. Projects can
evolve into a senior design project or an undergraduate honors thesis. Senior design projects are required
for graduation.
Projects can also evolve into a Master's thesis topic. This should be
emphasized. Students pursuing an MS Thesis option will be able to complete the degree in 1.5 years!
Publishing and Travel to National/International Conferences
These days, companies such as Motorola and Intel expect (and strongly encourage) their engineers/employees to publish their work. Publishing is
great publicity for the company and it is used as another way to assess
performance. Motorola, for example, has a highly publicized financial
reward system for their employees. I have several former students at
Motorola who get around $1K per paper! Pretty great incentive when you add
the travel, hotel, and conference expenses! After attending Motorola's
Silver Quill banquet - where they honor Motorolans who have published - I
feel strongly that it is necessary for us to encourage our students to
publish early on.
Given this industry trend, participating MoSART students will be expected to
publish their work in refereed journals as well as in the proceedings of national and international
conferences. Productive students will be
encouraged (with funding) to attend conference (e.g.American Control
Conference, COnference on Decision and Control). Recently, I send a student to Greece to
present his work at the 5th IEEE Mediteranean Conference on Controls.
General Skills
Participating students will develop a myriad of skills which will be useful
after graduation - whether they pursue positions in industry or graduate
degrees. Please let students know. Working on such projects will be an excellent opportunity.
Getting Started: After Joining Our MoSART Team
To join our MoSART team, please contact me via email or come see me at my office. The first step will be to pick some system (e.g. semiconductor fabrication). After this, you will need to do the following:
- Get the following from our MoSART team leaders (see below)
- (i) CD ROMS with Microsoft Visual C++ software,
- (ii) suggestions for good Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 and Windows NT references,
- (iii) existing C++ environments. Ask our team leaders about the recently acquired suite of Microsoft Development Tools. Microsoft has given us alot of useful stuff! Gain access from Kathy Brower (GWC606, Kathy.Brower@asu.edu, 965-8382) to my Electromechanical Systems Design Laboratory (GWC 483).
- Learn how to (i) modify mathematical equations within the existing environments (code), (ii) recompile the code, and (iii) run the modified code. Team leaders can help with this. Learn how the simulation module within the existing code manipulates animation objects (e.g. 2D gifs, Microsoft Direct 3D objects).
- Obtain a simple 2D animation model (e.g. gif) for your particular system. This might, for example, be a picture which you have downloaded off of the www. Students working on animation projects will eventually develop Microsoft Direct-3D animation models.
- Here is a primer (pdf format) on writing your own direct-3D animation modules (author: Mr. Chen-I Lim, last update: 4/12/98).
You do not need a detailed mathematical model for your system
at first. After you have accomplished the above tasks, I will provide you with detailed mathematical models for the system which you will focus on. You will then implement the mathematical models using MATLAB/SIMULINK or MATRIX-X. At that point, you will be in a position to interact significantly with me.
References
Windows NT 4.0
- "Windows NT Workstation Version 4.0 Step by Step," Microsoft Press, Redmond
WA, 1996
Visual C++ 4.0
- Ori Gurewich and Nathan Gurewich, " Teach Yourself Visual C+++ 4," Sams
Publishing, Indianapolis, IN, 1996.
- Scott Stanfield and Ralph Arvesen, "Visual C++ 4.0 How-To," Waite Group
Press, Corte Madera, CA, 1996.
Visual C++ 5.0
- Ori Gurewich and Nathan Gurewich, "Teach Yourself Visual C++ 5 in 21 Days," Fourth Edition, Sams Publishing, Indianapolis, IN, 1997.
- David J. Kuruglinski, "Inside Visual C++," Fourth Edition, Microsoft Press, Redmond
WA, 1997.
Comments on C++ vs. Java
The following is taken from the introduction of David J. Kuruglinski's Inside Visual C++.
Execution Speed. A compiled program will alwys be faster thanan interpreted program.
Access to Operating System. For security reasong Java applets can't perform such tasks as writting to the disk and accessing serial ports. In order to be platform independent, Java application programs are limited to the "lowest common denominator" of operating system features. A C++ program for Microsoft Windows is more flexible because it can call any Win32 function at any time.
If you need an Internet applet or a truly platform independent application, choose Java. If you need efficiency and flexibility, choose C++.
Direct 3D and Direct Draw
- Stan Trujillo, "Cutting-Edge Direct 3D Programming," Coriolis Group Books,
Scottsdale, AZ, 1996.
- Bret Timmins, "Direct Draw Programming," M&T Books, New York, NY, 1996.
JAVA and VRML
- Stephen R Davis, "Learn Java Now," Microsoft Press, Redmond, WA, 1996.
- Steven Holzer, "Visual J++ 1.1," Sybex, San Francisco, 1997.
- C.S. Horstemann and G. Cornell, "Core Java: Volume I - Fundamental," Sun Microsystems Press, Mountainview, CA, 1997, ISBN 0-13-766957-7. Also see
http://www.javasoft.com and
http://www.prenhall.com.
- Jamie Jaworski, "Java Developer's Guide," Sams Net, Indianapolis, IN, 1996
- Roger Lea, Kouichi Matsude, and Ken Miyashita, "Java for 3D and VRML
Worlds," New Riders Publishing, Indianapolis, IN, 1996.
- Laura Lemay and Charles L. Perkins, "Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days,"
Sams Net, Indianapolis, IN, 1996.
- Stephen N. Matsuba and Bernie Roehl, "Special Edition Using VRML," QUE
Corporation, Hollis, NH, 1996.
LATEX
- Jane Hahn, "Latex for Everyone," Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River, NJ,
1993.
- Helmut Kopka and Patrick W. Daly, "A Guide to LATEX2e," Second Edition,
Addison-Wesley, Wokingham, England, 1995.
Some of the above references may be found in the ASU Bookstore (965-5818). You may also want to try the
Borders Bookstore across from the Fiesta Mall (Southern and Alma School).
MoSART Team Leaders
Mr. Richard Metzger
office: GWC-620, 965-0484
home: 890-9472
rpm@asu.edu
Mr. Chen-I Lim
home: 784-7850
cilim@asu.edu
Download Zip file with Helicopoter Executable
Download Zip file with Helicopoter Source Code! (Visual C++ 4+)
These individuals are highly qualified. You can learn alot from them. Please do so!
Thank you.
AAR
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