Mechatronics 12 (2002) 833843

A PID servo control system experiment conducted remotely via Internet

R.M. Parkin
a

a,*

, C.A. Czarnecki b, R. Safaric c, D.W. Calkin

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronics Research Centre, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK b School of Computing Sciences, DeMontfort University, Leicester, UK c Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Maribor, Slovenia Received 19 August 1999; accepted 5 April 2001

Abstract The principles of robotics and control are widely taught in engineering subjects, however a common problem concerns the limited availability of expensive equipment with which students can work with, in order to acquire valuable practical hands on experience. The MuMaTE virtual robotics and control project on the World Wide Web (www) was launched to evaluate the suitability of virtual learning environments, the Internet, and multimedia technologies within an engineering-based exible learning program. Students using networked computers can access this facility to study a wide variety of on-line course material and perform a series of interactive experiments with real world laboratory hardware. This paper presents an on-line experiment, which enabled users to successfully control and observe the response of a commercial position servo system. The development of the project web server, interface electronics and control software is also discussed. MuMaTE: http://mumate. lboro.ac.uk 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Increased accessibility to the Internet has been successfully exploited by many institutions to provide wider access to on-line learning resources. The World Wide Web (www) [1] has evolved into a distributed hypermedia system, which permits

Corresponding author. E-mail address: r.m.parkin@lboro.ac.uk (R.M. Parkin).

0957-4158/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 9 5 7 - 4 1 5 8 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 2 7 - 7

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most typical desk top and unix computing platforms to access to a diverse global repository of media resources. In response to a research initiative funded by the higher education funding councils of the UK, a small scale virtual robotics and control laboratory, MuMaTE [2], was developed to study the design issues involved in providing increased access to real world laboratory resources and learning material. From an engineering perspective, this work developed platform independent simulation tools for robotics, utilising a desktop virtual reality environment to improve the visualisation of the manipulator hardware and associated workspace. The work also facilitated the control of robotic hardware across the www, enabling the study of novel manipulator control paradigms. 1.1. Engineering and robotics on the World Wide Web The success of earlier work within the eld of telerobotics and teleoperation via the www clearly demonstrates the potential of the Internet in providing remote public access to laboratory environments within the academic community. For example, the virtual engineering laboratory developed by Carnegie Mellon University makes electronic test equipment such as oscilloscopes, function generators, etc. available to users across the www, thus introducing students to the concept of remote experimentation [3]. The equipment is used to characterise and identify faults in a variety of electrical circuits. One such exercise, titled Martian Rescue, simulates a failure in the electronics responsible for positioning a spacecrafts on board video camera. Students are required to analyse the problem and recongure the spacecrafts remaining circuitry to restore its operation. Another example concerns the robot telescope project at the University of Bradford [4]. This allows professional and amateur astronomers to submit observation requests to the telescope and access a range of supplementary on-line documentation and educational material. Other successful www based robotic projects include the Mercury project [5], which utilised a simple SCARA manipulator to uncover objects buried within the workspace. Users were able to view the scene as a series of static images and control the position of the robot arm, before uncovering the artefact with a short burst of compressed air. This later evolved into the Telegarden project [6], which used a similar system to propagate and tend to plants. The University of Western Australias Telerobot experiment [7] provides Internet control of an industrial ASEA IRB-6 robot arm through the www. Users are required to manipulate and stack wooden blocks, and like the earlier Mercury project the view of the workcell is limited to periodically updated static images captured by cameras located around the workspace. Mobile robotics and active vision hardware has also been made available to the www community in the form of the Netrolab [8] project at the University of Reading. Alongside the academic projects, the commercial interest being shown in exploiting the www for remote experimentation is growing. One interesting example is the virtual DSP laboratory developed by Texas Instruments [9], which allows users to compile, download and execute algorithms on-line using commercial hardware.

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Data transmission times across the world wide web depend heavily on the transient loading of the network, making direct teleoperation unsuitable for time critical interactions. Rather than allowing the users to interact with the laboratory resources directly, as in many of the previous examples, the adopted approach requires users to congure the experiments using a simulated representation of the real world apparatus. These conguration data are then downloaded to the laboratory for verication and execution on the real device before returning the results to the user once the experiment is complete.

2. Virtual learning environment Traditional distance learning and computer-based tutoring systems are popular in many subjects, however, the delivery of course material is generally predetermined by the course developer which limits the level of interaction open to the user. A students ability to understand material within practical subjects such as engineering can be greatly enhanced if the taught concepts are reinforced through hands on practical experience. This project combines the technology of the world wide web with an eective training environment to allow students and engineers to study, simulate and interact with real world robotic and control apparatus through a virtual laboratory. This resource supplements traditional lecture and laboratory activities and allows users to perform experiments that would not otherwise be possible due to economic or safety grounds. 2.1. Humancomputer interface A virtual laboratory is simulated within a computer. This simulation can range in complexity from a simple text based environment through to immersive virtual reality providing three-dimensional interactive graphical models which bring the system to life. The growth of the www as a distributed hypermedia system is founded on the denition of the Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) [1], which provided a standardised method of describing text, image, audio and video data types. While the use of HTML specications enable two-dimensional formatted text documents and embedded images to be displayed on traditional www browsers, the addition of the Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) [10] provides an ecient mechanism for the distribution of desktop virtual reality environments across the www. Interactive three-dimensional worlds are created using various geometric and behavioural primitives. Possible applications for this technology include the use of static rendered geometric models for component visualisation within engineering design, while the additional behavioural primitives allow the models to respond to time-based, or user initiated, events. A suitably congured www browser is required to view and interact with the virtual world through navigation tools which allow the scene to scaled, rotated, translated, and viewed from an innite number of viewpoints.

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Throughout the development of this project experiments were undertaken to determine what eects the virtual environment had on the learning process, particularly those concerning: Pedagogical issues; Learning enhancement through sound; Scene persistence. Student learning styles can be assessed to recognise an individuals cognitive approach when processing information. Each will inuence the way in which the course material is best presented to the student [11]. A wholist for example is willing to be directed through the courseware, and is suited to the traditional closed approach to computer-based training widely used in intelligent tutoring systems, carefully guiding the user through the course material against a predened schedule. In contrast an analytic will want to exercise greater control, thus a more open approach allows the user to select their own choice of material and methods, making the system more eective as a research tool. Cognitive style also inuences the presentation of information within the human computer interface. Imagers are more tolerant of relatively unexciting tasks, while verbalisers prefer a lively presentation. Research into Earcons [12] indicates that they have been shown to be eective in communicating events or numeric data using sound messages within a computer user interface. Simple non speech auditory cues may be applied to conrm the click of a virtual switch, or act as a warning aid to augment traditional visual icons. A more sophisticated application of sound concerns the use of sound to simplify the visual user interface by providing an alternative way to present complex data. In particular sound may be useful in passing joint velocity, position sensing, and force feedback information from robots sensors back to the user. The suitability of directional and spatially localised sounds is also being explored as a navigation aid within the virtual world. To be eective, a learning environment should also oer a mechanism to achieve scene persistence between interactive sessions. This would allow the user to rejoin a partially completed exercise, rather than being forced into returning to the beginning of a module at the start of each new session. 2.2. Platform neutral software engineering A recurring problem with software engineering concerns the choice of target computing platform when developing new applications. Even with generic language specications such as ANSI C each application often requires additional supporting libraries to allow the executable code to run on a specic machine, due to dierences between microprocessor types, computer architectures and operating systems. The Java [13] programming language, and the notion of a virtual machine provide another approach to the development of platform neutral software. Program source code is compiled into an intermediate format, which represents the instruction set of a generic virtual machine. Each target computing platform is made responsible for

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translating the instruction set of the virtual machine into its own native code though an appropriate language interpreter. Now, the software engineer only has to consider developing the application to run within the constraints of virtual machine, rather than developing code for each individual computing platform. With Java, software development can take the form of a stand alone application program, or an applet or Java Script program module which is embedded within a HTML document. Stand alone applications and applets distribute the executable program using pre-compiled byte-codes which are viewed through a suitable environment, for example a Java enabled www browser. In contrast Java Scripts greatly simplied instruction set is interpreted directly without compilation. Strict rule checking and validation tests are applied during program compilation and execution to achieve a secure transmission protocol and maintain the integrity of computers, which utilise the executable Java programs. These measures, however, restrict the functionality of the language, particularly when accessing local resources, such as disk drives and memory mapped I/O devices, on the clients machine. These limitations can be overcome (Section 3.1), allowing platform-independent software development and program delivery to be readily achieved within the virtual learning environment by using a suitable Java enabled www browser, and distributing the executable code within a Java applet. 2.3. Networked resources The distributed nature of the virtual laboratory is illustrated in Fig. 1. As previously discussed (Section 1.1) the objective was not to provide real time teleoperation between the user and remote apparatus, rather to provide an environment in which the users develop and congure the experiments locally before transmitting the conguration data via the Internet to the project web site where the experiment is then validated and scheduled for execution on the laboratorys real world apparatus. Once complete the results of the experiments are returned to the user for analysis. The project server and local clients are connected to the Internet via the campus 10 Mbps Ethernet link. Home user clients however utilise a much slower 56 K modem

Fig. 1. Distributed learning resources.

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connection to their local Internet service provider using Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP). A copy of the virtual environment can be installed on a home clients local computer, permitting an eective environment for all laboratory users rather than requiring them to continually access the simulator across the network, minimising the inconvenience of lengthy data transmission times.

3. Virtual control systems laboratory This group of resources primarily deals with servo mechanisms. A servo mechanism is any control system used for the control of motion parameters such as displacement, velocity and acceleration. The objective is to displace the system such that it follows a desired input signal or forcing function. Fig. 2 shows the laboratory apparatus with the servo mechanism in the foreground. The experiment requires the user to optimise the response of the closed loop servo system, Fig. 3, against changes in applied forcing function and load conditions by tuning the proportional, integral and derivative gains within a discretised version of an analogue three term controller algorithm, Eq. (1) Z t de ut kp et ki 1 et dt kd : dt 0 The proportional term, kp , is increased to achieve a rapid acceleration in the system response, the integral term, ki , helps remove any residual steady state error between the desired input value, hI , and actual system output, h0 . Finally the derivative element, kd , provides an anticipatory action to reduce the overshoot in the response. 3.1. Experiment implementation and www protocol The project www server, responsible for processing requests for information by external www browsers, delivering on-line documents and providing access to the experimental apparatus, is implemented on an Intel Pentium-based computer, running the Windows98 operating system and a proprietary www server application.

Fig. 2. Experimental apparatus.

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Fig. 3. Control system.

The servo apparatus was chosen from commercially available educational hardware, and has been widely used for teaching control and instrumentation on undergraduate courses. Essentially the apparatus consists of a mechanical unit with servo motor, drive and sensing electronics, and a digital unit which provides analogue to digital conversion, signal multiplexing, data latches, and other support functions. The digital unit is normally interfaced to a simple stand-alone computer which executes the software required to implement data acquisition and servo control. However, because the MuMaTE project makes this apparatus available as a networked resource the stand-alone computer has been replaced by the www server. Experiments which have been congured within the virtual laboratory environment can be downloaded using appropriate transmission protocols to the project server for validation and execution on the connected apparatus, this ow of information is illustrated in Fig. 4. The common gateway interface is a standard method for interfacing external application programs with information servers, overcoming some of Javas limitations. C++ and an existing CGI function library was utilised to link the protocols of the www with the low level assembly language operations required to access the computers interface hardware and servo electronics. Before controlling the actual

Fig. 4. Transmission protocol.

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hardware this CGI process extracts the required operating parameters for the experiment from the data posted within a HTML form from the users www browser, illustrated in Fig. 5. The lower half of this www document displays the actual form, while the upper half allows the user to refer quickly back to the labsheet and course notes. The experiment is run for a xed duration specied by the remote user, as is the sampling frequency for the control algorithm and data logging. The duration chosen will typically be sucient to observe the dynamic response of the servo to forcing function, capturing the transient response of the servo and its settling down to a steady-state value over several cycles. Once invoked, the CGI process controlling the experiment applies the requested forcing function to the servo. Servo input, hi , and feedback signals, h0 , are digitised before computing the position error et and applying the discretised three-term controller equation. The updated drive signal ut is passed through a digital to analogue converter and power amplier before energising the motor. The sampled data from the experiment are also stored for later analysis, as an ASCII text le within a web visible directory on the project server. The CGI programs nal task is to return the data le of the experiments results to the user, along with a Java applet. This applet, shown in Fig. 6, allows the user to analyse the data using an interactive graph, which can be scaled, zoomed and scrolled to focus on areas of interest. Whilst performing the experiment within the real world laboratory in real time solved the problem of unpredictable network transmission times, the system did identify a local timing problem with quasi-periodic sampling within the control algorithm, due to the concurrent execution of multiple programs, including www server requests to other users, on the same computer. This issue was resolved within the on-line robotics equipment by the use of distributed control. The project server

Fig. 5. Data entry form.

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Fig. 6. Results and graph applet.

no longer controls the resource directly, but passes a block of parameters to a distributed hierarchy of embedded micro-controllers, eectively delegating the robots low level sampling and control tasks, leaving the server free to concentrate on the www interface and the servicing of browser requests. Of the various on-line documents delivered by this server, static documents form the core archive of learning resources. System help les, tutorial examples, technical information and educational material are made available to the users as an accessible library of information. Some of the documents are occasionally modied by the system, for example, the generation of a daily work schedule or listing of system downtime. Typically a www browser will cache all documents so that it does not have to reconnect to the originating server when a user requests a page they have recently seen, reloading a copy of the data from the users local system. Dynamic documents, however, are continually changing therefore appropriate methods must be devised to ensure that the latest issue of a document is delivered to the user. The solution adopted was to append an incremental numeric le extension to the lename of the logged results, and update the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), passed as a parameter to the graph drawing applet, to point to the new le, thus forcing the browser to download the latest data le instead of a previously stored local copy of an earlier le.

4. Virtual robotics laboratory Following the initial success of the on-line servo mechanism experiment, a library of interactive learning material to aid research into the use of multiple robotic manipulators within advanced manufacturing applications was developed.

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Robotic manipulators are frequently required to work closely together during component transfer operations, or when a single robot is unable to reach over the entire workspace to perform a given task. More demanding tasks, however, such as the handling of large bars and ingots, or awkward assembly operations when a components centre of gravity prevents a single manipulator from maintaining a desired alignment, generate the need for a much greater degree of co-operation between each robot. An interactive desktop virtual reality environment, using VRML, improved the realism and sense of presence the user feels when programming the manipulators in their associated operating environment has been created [14]. Simulation tools allow the kinematic and dynamic behaviour of the system to be studied, and permit research into the high level task planning, task decomposition, process synchronisation and communication issues involved with the control of tightly coupled manipulators. A robotic workcell is also being constructed to enable the performance of these novel control paradigms to be studied within a real world automated manufacturing cell.

5. Conclusions This paper introduced a www based virtual laboratory for robotics and control engineering, allowing both interactive simulation and remote experimentation with real world devices, either locally or from a remote site. An on-line position servo experiment has been successfully implemented. Users can congure the controller parameters, invoke the experiment, and analyse the response of the system. The distributed control methodology eliminated the unpredictable network loading problems and variable transmission times faced by many other direct teleoperation systems. Students response to using the system has been very good, but there were complaints due to a lack of realism in that tasks were submitted and results were returned, but the experiment remained opaque. This criticism has been largely overcome by the provision of a linked web-camera in the laboratory to provide visual indication of the experiment and this has enriched the student experience. Problems have been experienced when students submit unreasonable requests, leading to heavy oscillatory behaviour or instability. In many cases manual intervention is required to reset the laboratory equipment. This is clearly unfeasible in usage across the Internet. Such problems may be ameliorated via careful checking of data and imposition of bounds. Whilst this works it does reduce student experience signicantly. In general it is felt that the most direct benet to the student is to conduct real world experiments on inexpensive equipment to develop experimentation, manual and instrumentation skills. This experience may be signicantly enriched by Internet access to specialist laboratories with larger and more expensive equipment which would otherwise be beyond the reach of the student or learning institution. This has implications for didactic equipment vendors who may need to alter their concepts of

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business and revenue streaming, deriving income not from sale of equipment but from selling time on Internet laboratories.

Acknowledgements This project was funded under the Joint Information Systems Committees technology applications program which exists to develop and promote an awareness of emerging technology within the UKs higher education community. Robotic and control resources were kindly donated by TecQuipment Ltd. and Feedback Instruments Ltd.

References
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