A Reconfigurable Hardware Testbed for Elastically-Coupled Systems

The product of this thesis is a hardware emulation testbed that can be used for hardware-in-the-loop simulations. In its most basic form, the testbed can be modeled as a rectilinear spring/mass/damper system. Rectilinear elastically-coupled systems are very traditional for academic interests. An ideal system is a series of aligned masses joined by linear elastic and/or inelastic bonds (e.g. springs and dampers) and placed on a frictionless surface. Physical systems are valuable to both validate idealized models and explore the nonlinearities in real world' coupled systems. The same basic physical systems, but with feedback from position sensors, form closed loop systems that can test a host of controller architectures. In another scenario a physical system of the type already mentioned can be modified by using position sensors and computer interface software to drive a reaction mass actuator (RMA). The RMA is mounted midsystem and coupled to the system on both sides. In this way, the system becomes the physical representation of a general nth-order system confined to rectilinear displacement. In this form the motor becomes the source of both a constant input and deterministic (or stochastic) disturbance. The RMA is used as the control actuator to dampen disturbances while passing the desired input signals. In this scenario the inputs can be multiple frequency signals convolved in the computer and fed into a single actuator.