Course of lab activities on control theory based on the Lego NXT ⋆ Alexander A. Kapitonov * Alexey A. Bobtsov **,* Yuri A. Kapitanyuk * Dmitry S. Sysolyatin * Evgeniy S. Antonov * Anton A. Pyrkin * Sergey A. Chepinskiy * * ITMO University, 49, Kronverkski prospekt, Saint-Petersburg, 197101, Russia e-mail: kap2fox@gmail.com ** Institute for Problems of Mechanical Engineering, the Russian Academy of Sciences, 61 Bolshoy prospekt, V.O., 199178, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, e-mail: bobtsov@mail.ru Abstract: This article presents practical course content of a control theory subject used in the Control Systems and Informatics department of the ITMO University. There are many different examples of the empirical development and model based control algorithms. Course begins with the simple line tracer robot and ends with the inverted pendulum on a cart. During the course, students are offered to learn the problems related with identification, modelling and programming, based on the Lego NXT platform. Keywords: LEGO Mindstorms NXT, mobile robots, Ziegler-Nichols’ ultimate gain method, modal control, Ackermann’s formula. INTRODUCTION One of the important problem is decreasing of the stu- dents’ education level. The interest in the natural sciences falls because the students do not know how to apply the theoretical knowledge. Is it useful for me in my life? – question that students often asked a teachers. But if the students go straight from theory to practice it is a very strong motivation to learn fundamental science. Last year we introduce to students a new kind of learning methodology based on Lego NXT platform. Lego used as educational platform and had many diffrent implementa- tions A. Valera et al. (2011) and Baum et.al. (2000). But we did it for first year students without complex things. Positive feedback were received from students. Since now they have more interest in control theory applications. Maybe, they don’t understand complex mathematics, but will be interested in explanation in future. First lab activity includes Ziegler-Nichols’ application to the PID controller for the line tracer robot. Second activity is the identification NXT motor mechanical time constant and back EMF constant. Third activity is modelling and developing motor angle proportional controller. Fourth activity is measuring NXT motor torque constant. The last activity is modelling and developing NXT Inverted pendulum. Fig. 1. Line tracer robot. LAB ACTIVITY I At first, we show to students simple robotic systems, and teach them methods, that do not require profound knowl- edge in physics and mathematics. For this deep we decide to use Ziegler-Nichols’ ultimate gain method (closed-loop method). During this work, students have time to learn NXC program language for NXT brick, and try to use some abilities of Scilab, open source software for numer- ⋆ This article is supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of Russian Federation (project 14.Z50.31.0031), and Government of Russian Federation (GOSZADANIE 2014/190, grant 074-U01) Preprints of the 19th World Congress The International Federation of Automatic Control Cape Town, South Africa. August 24-29, 2014 Copyright © 2014 IFAC 9063