SYSTEM INTERFACING, DATA ACQUISITION, AND CONTROL SYSTEMS.

Input Signals of a Mechatronic System

The output of a sensor is usually an analog signal. The simplest type of analog signal is a voltage level with a direct (though not necessarily linear) correlation to the input condition. A second type is a pulse width modulated (PWM) signal. A third type is a waveform, as shown in Fig. 3.3. This type of signal is modulated either in its amplitude or its frequency or, in some cases, both. These changes reflect the changes in the

Analog-to-Digital Converters

The ADC can basically be typed by two parameters: the analog input range and the digital output range.
As an example, consider an ADC that is converting a voltage level ranging 012 V into a single byte of 8 bits. In this example, each binary count increment reflects an increase in analog voltage of 1/256 of the maximum12 V. There is an unusual twist to this conversion, however. Since a zero value represents 0 V, and a 128 value represents half of the maximum value, 6 V in this example, the maximum decimal value of 255 represents 255/256 of the maximum voltage value, or 11.953125 V.

Microprocessor Control
A closed loop control system is one that determines a difference in the desired and actual condition (the error) and creates a correction control command to remove this error. PID control demonstrates three ways of looking at this error and correcting it.

The first way is the P of PID, the proportional term. This term represents the control action made by the microcontroller in proportion to the error. In other words, the bigger the error, the bigger the correction. The I in PID is for the integral of the error over time. The integral term produces a correction that considers the time the error has been present. Stated in other words, the longer the error continues, the bigger the correction. Lastly, the D in PID stands for derivative. In the derivative term, the corrective action is related to the derivative or change of the error with respect to time. Stated in other words, the faster the error is changing, the bigger the correction. Control systems can use P,PI, PD, or PID in creating corrective actions. The problem generally is tuning the system by selecting the proper values in the

Quantization theory

Analog to digital conversion is a two-step process, which changes a sampled analog voltage into digital form. These processes are quantization and coding. Quantization is the transformation of a continuous analog input into a set of data represented by discrete output states. Coding is the assignment of a digital code word or number to each output state as shown in Figure

Digital-to-analog conversion hardware

The process of converting a number held in a digital register to an analog voltage or current is accomplished with a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). The DAC is a useful interface between a computer and an output transducer. Binary-weighted ladder DAC Current summing and IC devices are used to build DACs. DACs are nothing more than operational amplifiers whose gains can be programme digitally. An inverting op amp has a selection of fixed resistances which scales a varying input voltage.

binary-weighted ladder

DACs fix the input voltage but switch a series of input resistors to vary the gain and voltage output level. DACs are normally switched current devices designed to drive the current summing junction of an operational amplifier. In Figure 7.5 all the input voltages are equal to the reference voltage VR. Each input resistor is twice as large as the one preceding it. Thus the construction is called a binary-weighted ladder. Each current is proportional to the value of a bit position in a binary number. The output voltage from each input, is one-half the value produced by the preceding input:

DAC limitations

Common DAC limitations are an anomalous step size between adjacent binary numbers, nonmonotonic behavior, or a zero output.