EE401.

Engineering Design by
Teams: Robotics 1
Lecture 2. Embedded Systems
for Robotics
Instructor: Huynh Viet Thang
Aug. 2015
1

Based on the materials of

Prof. Marek A. Perkowski
Intelligent Robotics Laboratory
Portland State University

Textbook:
T. Brunl Embedded Robotics, Springer 2003
The University of Western Australia, Electrical,
Electronic and Computer Engineering

What are in this lecture?

Embedded systems
Robots and Controllers
Sensors
Actuators
Control techniques

Embedded systems

Definition for Embedded System

A combination of hardware and software which together
form a component of a larger machine.
An example of an embedded system is a microprocessor
that controls an automobile engine.
An embedded system is designed to run on its own
without human intervention, and may be required to
respond to events in real time.
Source: www.computeruser.com/resources/dictionary

Applications
Areas
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Application Areas

TV
stereo
remote control
phone / mobile phone
refrigerator
microwave
washing machine
electric tooth brush
oven / rice or bread cooker
watch
alarm clock
electronic musical instruments
electronic toys (stuffed animals,handheld toys, pinballs, etc.)
medical home equipment (e.g. blood
pressure, thermometer)

[PDAs?? More like standard computer system]

Control Applications; Consumer Products
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Application Areas
Medical Systems
pace maker, patient monitoring systems, injection systems,
intensive care units,

Office Equipment
printer, copier, fax,

Tools
multimeter, oscilloscope, line tester, GPS,

Banking
ATMs, statement printers,

Transportation
(Planes/Trains/[Automobiles] and Boats)

Radar, Traffic lights, Signalling systems,

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Application Areas
Automobiles
engine management, trip computer, cruise control,
immobilizer, car alarm,
airbag, ABS, ESP,

Building Systems
elevator, heater, air conditioning, lighting, key card
entries, locks, alarm systems,

Agriculture
feeding systems, milking systems,

Space
satellite systems,
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Application Areas
Facts:
1997: The average U.S. household has over 10
embedded computers (source: www.it.dtu.dk/~jan)

1998: 90% Embedded Systems vs. 10%

Computers
(source: Frautschi, www.caliberlearning.com)

2001: The Volvo S80 has 18 embedded

controllers and 2 busses (source: Volvo)

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Automobiles

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Microcontrollers

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Von-Neumann vs. Harvard

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Microcontrollers
Microprocessor
CPU (on single chip)

Microcontroller
CPU + Timers + I/O (+RAM) (+ROM)
Reduced chip count for board design
Embedded system
Todays Technology:
Surface Mount Device (SMD)
Ball Grid Array (BGA)

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Input and Output

Required to communicate with outside world
PC System:

Keyboard
Monitor
Parallel port (printer port)
Serial port + USB

Embedded System:
Sensors (e.g. in automobile: acceleration sensor, seat
sensor)
Actuators (e.g. in automobile: valves for airbags)

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Input and Output

Input / output device implementation can be:

Memory-mapped
I/O mapped (ports)
DMA (direct memory access)

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Assignment
You are required to design the controller (as an
embedded system) for a consumer product,
describe the system (give the specification) if the
product is
A) an air-conditioner
B) a washing machine
C) a smart TV
D) a smart phone

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Robots and
Controllers
What are the advantages of using mobile robot
systems as opposed to traditional ways of
education, for example mathematical models
or computer simulation?
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3 advantages
Students can relate to a robot much better than to a
piece of software; tasks to be solved involving a robot
are of a practical nature and directly make sense to
students;
A working robot program will be a robust system that
takes into account and overcomes inaccuracies and
imperfections: a valid engineering approach to a typical
(industrial) problem;
Mobile robot programming is enjoyable and an
inspiration to students;

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Mobile robots
A case study from the
Mobile Robot Lab at the
University of Western
Australia [Braunl 2006]
EyeBot family using
EyeCon

Wheeled robots
Tracked robots
Legged robots
Flying robots
Underwater robots
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An example: Wheeled Robot

Require 2 motors for driving and steering
Single Drive

Driven and steered wheel

Differential Drive

Driven wheels

Ackermann Steering

Driven wheels
Steered wheels

Differential Drive is the most commonly used mobile

robot design
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Braitenberg vehicles
A conceptual abstraction of actuators, sensors, and
robot control by Braitenberg (1984)
Simple interaction between motors and sensors
If a light sensor is activated by a light source, it will proportionally
increase the speed of the motor it is linked to.

Braitenberg vehicles avoiding light

Light source

How does it work?

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Braitenberg vehicles (cont.)

Braitenberg vehicles searching light
Light source

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Embedded controllers
The EyeCon: 32-bit CPU

RoBIOS (Robot Basic Input Output System) operating

system
What are the advantages of using 32-bit CPUs vs. Using
8-bit CPUs?

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RoBIOS

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Sensors
What is important is to find the right
sensor for a particular application.

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Overview
Data transfer from the sensor to CPU
either CPU-initiated (polling)
or sensor-initiated (interrupt)

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Sensor categories
Based on sensor output

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Other sensor classification

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Binary sensor

Simplest
Easy to design
Active low in
this example
What if active high?

36

Analog vs. Digital sensors

A number of sensors produce analog signals,
A/D converter is required
Microphone
Analog infrared distance sensor
Analog compass

Digital sensors are usually more complex and

more accurate than analog ones

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Synchronous serial interface

synchronous serial means that the converted
data value is read bit by bit from the sensor

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Shaft encoder
Encoder is fundamental feedback sensor for
motor control
Magnetic encoders and Optical encoders
Incremental encoders:
Count number of
segments passed from
a certain starting point
Not sufficient to locate
a certain absolute position

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Gray code disk

help locate a certain absolute position

How to determine orientation of the motor?

use 2 sensors (magnetic or optical) positioned with a
small phase shift to each other (see previous slide).
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Other sensors
Sonar (ultra-sound)
Infrared sensors

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Other sensors (cont.)

Compass,
Orientation sensors
Gyroscope: rotational change of orientation about one axis
Accelerometer: acceleraion along one axis
Inclinometer: absolute orientation angle about one axis

Digital Camera
Microphone

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Actuators for
Robots
Actuators are used in order to
produce mechanical movement in
robots.
Slides from Braunl and Jussi Suomela
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Actuators

Motor and Encoder

H-Bridge
Pulse-Width-Modulation (PWM)
Servos
Other robotic actuators

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Actuator Types

Electrical
Hydraulic
Pneumatic
Others

Actuators can be built in may different ways, most

prominently:
electrical motors
pneumatics and valves.

we will only deal with electrical motors

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DC-Motors

simple, cheap
easy to control
1W - 1kW
can be overloaded
brushes wear
limited overloading
on high speeds

46

DC-motor control
Controller + H-bridge
PWM-control
Speed control by
controlling motor
current=torque
Efficient small
components
PID control

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H-Bridge

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H-Bridge
Hardware Implementation with
Microcontroller:
2 Digital output pins from microcontroller,
[one at Gnd, one at Vcc] feed into a power
amplifier
Alternative: use only 1 digital output pin plus one
inverter, then feed into a power amplifier

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Stepper
Motors
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Reluctance (Stepper) Motors

angle control
slow
usually no feedback used
accurate positioning
easy to control

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Stepper Motors
Stepper motors are another type of motors that do not require feedback
A stepper motor can be incrementally driven, one step at a time,
forward or backward
Stepper motor characteristics are:
Number of steps per revolution (e.g. 200 steps per revolution = 1.8
per step)
Max. number of steps per second (stepping rate = max speed)
Driving a stepper motor requires a 4 step switching sequence for fullstep mode
Stepper motors can also be driven in 8 step switching sequence for
half-step mode (higher resolution)
Step sequence can be very fast, the resulting motion appears to be very
smooth
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Stepper Motors
Advantages
No feedback hardware required

Disadvantages
No feedback (!)
Often feedback is still required,
e.g. for precision reasons, since a stepper motor can lose a step
signal.

Requires 2 H-Bridges plus amplifiers instead of 1

Other
Driving software is different but not much more complicated
Some controllers (e.g. M68332) support stepper motors in
firmware (TPU)
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Motor and Encoder

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Motor and Encoder

Motor speed determined by:
supplied voltage
Motor direction determined by:
polarity of supplied voltage
Difficult to generate analog power signal
(1A ..10A) directly from microcontroller
external amplifier (pulse-width modulation)
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Motor and Encoder

Encoder disk is turned once for each rotor revolution
Encoder disk can be optical or magnetic
Single detector can determine speed
Dual detector can determine speed and direction
Using gears on motor shaft increases encoder accuracy

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Pulse-Width Modulation
(PWM)
A/D converters are used for reading analog
sensor signals
Why not use D/A converter for motor control?
Too expensive (needs power circuitry)
Better do it by software, switching power on/off in
intervals
This is called Pulse-Width Modulation or PWM

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Pulse-Width Modulation
How does this work?
We do not change the supplied voltage
Power is switched on/off at a certain pulse ratio
matching the desired output power

Signal has very high frequency (e.g. 20kHz)

Motors are relatively slow to respond
The only thing that counts is the supplied power
Integral (Summation)

Pulse-Width Ratio = ton / tperiod

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Servos
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Servos

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Servos
Terminology:
Do not confuse servos with servo motors
DC motors (brushed or brushless) are also sometimes also
referred to as servo motors
See: http://www.theproductfinder.com/motors/bruser.htm
So when does a motor become a servo motor? There are
certain design criteria that are desired when building a servo
motor, which enable the motor to more adequately handle
the demands placed on a closed loop system.
First of all, servo systems need to rapidly respond to
changes in speed and position, which require high
acceleration and deceleration rates.
This calls for extremely high intermittent torque.
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Hydraulic Actuators

linear movement
big forces without gears
actuators are simple
in mobile machines
Bad efficiency
motor, pump, actuator combination is lighter
than motor, generator, battery, motor & gear
combination

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Hydraulic actuators

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Pneumatic Actuators

like hydraulic except power from compressed air

fast on/off type tasks

big forces with elasticity

no leak problems

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Control techniques
Closed loop control is an essential topic for
embedded systems, bringing together actuators
and sensors with the control algorithm in software
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Control Techniques
Problem: supplying the same analog voltage (or the same
PWM signal) to a motor does not guarantee that the motor
will run at the same speed under all circumstances!

Solution: Feedback is everything!

On-off control
PID control
Others:
Adaptive control (LMS, NLMS, RLS)
Fuzzy control
Neural Networks

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On-off control
The power to motor is either switched on or
switched off

R(t): control signal (control voltage) over time

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On-off control (cont.)

Behavior over time

Advantage: simplest control method; used in

refridgerators, heater, thermostat, etc.
Disadvantage: the motor control signal is only updated at
fixed time intervals (e.g., 10ms)  hysteresis (tr)

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On-off control (cont.)

Use a hyteresis band with 2 desired signals to prevent a
high switching frequency

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On-off control (cont.)

Software implementation

See: Chapter 4, T. Brunl Embedded Robotics,

Springer 2003

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Step-response of an on-off
controller

Not smooth
Can we improve this?

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PID Control

PID = P + I + D
P = Proportional
I = Integral
D = Derivative

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Proportional Controller (P)

The control voltage is directly proportional to the error
signal (error function)

P controller is only slightly different from on-off controller

Varying the controller gain Kp will change the behavior
of the P controller
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Proportional Controller (cont.)

Step response for P controller
Higher Kp  Faster response
Important: Too high Kp
leads to undesirable
oscillating system!
Require fast response
and stable system
(e.g., Kp = 0.45)

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Proportional Controller (cont.)

P controllers equilibrium state is not at the desired
velocity due to control formula
Steady-state error is the difference between desired
velocity and equilibrium-states velocity
Can we reduce the
steady-state error?
 Integral controller

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Integral Controller (I)

The idea of the I controller is to reduce the steady-state
error of P controller
The I controller is commonly used with the P or PD
controller

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Integral Controller (cont.)

Define the error function : e(t) =
The formula for PI controller is
Rewrite for 2 independent additive terms for P and I
How can we compute the integral?
naive way (see textbook)
proper implementation: replace the integral with a sum and
use the trapezoidal rule

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Integral Controller (cont.)

Use the term Rn-1 to remove the sum

Substitute KI for

We only need to store

the previous control value Rn-1
the previous error value en-1

to calculate the PI output

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Derivative Controller (D)

The idea of using the D controller is to speed up the P
controllers response to a change of input
The D controller is commonly used with the P or PI
controller
Recall:
P provides a better step response than on-off controller
I for reducing steady-state error of P
D for speeding up step response of P

How can a PID controller help us?

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P, PD and PID

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PID controller
A complete PID formula

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PID parameter tuning

Find parameters experimentally

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Other control techniques

Adaptive control (LMS, NLMS, RLS)
Fuzzy control
Control using Neural Network

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Summary
Embedded systems
MCU vs. Computer

Robots and Controllers

Braitenberg vehicles, Operating System (RoBIOS)

Sensors
Binary, Encoder, Sonar, Infrared sensors, Orientation sensors,
Cameras, Microphones

Actuators
DC motor, Servo, Stepper motors, H-Bridge and PWM

Control techniques
On-off, PID

Next: artificial intelligence of robots

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Projects
1. Auto-driving Car
2. Smart 2-DOF Robot Arm

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