Sensors, actuators & control loops — how sensing, computation and actuation combine into one controlled mechanical system.
Close a proportional loop around a pump-fed tank and compare open-loop drive, sensor bias and an extra drain load.
Tune Kp, Ki and Kd on a heated thermal bath and watch the P, I and D terms, saturation and anti-windup.
Pulse a two-phase stepper driving an indexing table and see following error and loss of synchronism under load and inertia.
Decode A/B quadrature transitions from a rotating code wheel into a signed x4 count, then swap or stick a channel.
Route air through a 5/2 valve into a double-acting cylinder and compare extension and retraction force and chamber pressures.
Release or shake a spring-mounted payload with a viscous damper and track damping ratio, resonance and dissipated energy.
Align a camera cradle with cascaded position and velocity PI loops, then add a load step or reverse the encoder polarity.
Run an XY gantry through coordinated, independent and circular moves and watch lag turn into contour error.
Threshold a synthetic ring image and accept or reject parts by area and hole brightness under changing light and focus.