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| Prof. William Provancher |
Welcome to ME5960/6960, Advanced Mechatronics for Mechanical Engineers
The goal of this course is to give students an experience in integrating electromechanical systems by utilizing a commodity microcontroller. Students will review some basic electronics, and then focus more directly on the basics of microcontrollers, learning to interface a PIC microcontroller with a broad variety of peripheral devices including motor drivers, LCDs, shift registers, DAC and encoder chips among others. The course will also emphasize the basics of serial communication, culminating with a wireless serial communication based laboratory and project. Students will leave the course with a broad set of skills necessary to build custom embedded systems through the use of a microcontroller and off-the-shelf components.
Course Objectives
- Review basic electronics
- Filters, op amps, transistors…
- Focus on interfacing with a microcontroller
- A/D & D/A
- Motors (PWM)
- Sensors
- Timers & Interrupts
- Serial communication (including wireless)
The course will consist of biweekly lectures that will meet T-Th 10:40–12:15. There will be several homeworks and in-class quizzes, but a majority of the course work load will be laboratory based. A tentative lab meeting time has been set for Tuesdays 1–3 PM, but there will also be open lab hours where students can complete their labs. Students should anticipate a heavy work load in completing laboratory exercises. Most labs take 15–30 hours to complete over a 1 1/2 week period, depending on your experience and particular problems encountered. I encourage ME and ECE/CS students to work together as lab partners to create an environment conducive to cross-polination. To keep course expenses limited, I am suggesting that students work in pairs on laboratory exercises and purchase their required electronics together. This should keep expenses under $35 per person (in addition to the $95 course lab fee shown in the course schedule).
There will be a course term project that will be initiated about half way through the semester. This year’s project theme will be biocentric mechatronics, so projects such as a blood monitoring sensor, haptic devices, or bioinspired robots will be encouraged. A list of possible projects are currently being compiled, but students are also encouraged to suggest their own projects (assuming they are mechatronic in nature). Students may work on their projects with the same person they work on labs with, or may choose to work with other people from class. In special circuistances, students can propose teams of more than 2 students.
- Prerequisites:
- Undergraduate Mechatronics or Embedded Systems Course
- Course in basic electrical circuits
- Course in C programming
(or permission from instructor)
Course Text:
- Introduction to Mechatronics by J. Edward Carryer, R. Matthew Ohline, and Thomas Kenny
- This is a text that is currently under development, but that most of the course materials are based on.
- The text will be available through the book store as a course pack for ~$60.
- Practical Electronics for Inventors, 2nd Edn., by Paul Scherz
- The 1st edition can also be accessed online from campus here).
Reference Texts:
- The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz, Winfield Hill
- I was hoping that the 3rd edition would be in in time, but it’s not clear to me if it is available yet. I’d hold off on buying this if you are so inclined, just to see if the 3rd edition becomes available.
- The Art & Science of C, by by Eric S. Roberts (or equivalent C reference from C S1000?, like Practical C Programming, 3rd Edition, by Steve Oualline )
- I would also hold off on specifically buying a C reference too if you don’t already have one.
- Enrollment Limits
- There is an enrollment limit on the course. Once this limit is reached, a limited number of additional students will be admitted to the course. Interested students should attend the first day of class and fill out a basic survey that will be used to select additional students. All undergraduate students will require permission from the instructor.
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Near Term Deliverables |
also see: Past Deliverables? |
| ME5960/6960 | ||
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| Prof. William Provancher | ||
| MEB 2120, 581–4119 | ||
| Office Hrs: TBD | ||
| Office Hrs: Tue 12–2 (In lab or office) | ||
| Thursday 10–11 In office | ||
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Announcements |
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Nov. 17, 2006 |
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| Office Hrs: M 12–2, W 12–2, Th 12–2 in lab(2265 MEB) | ||
| Preferred Email: berickso_at_cs | ||