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Design and deployment of a control board for thermoacoustic experiments
Acquisition and real-time manipulation of signals are critical aspects for effective experimental testing. In this work, an in-house solution is sought, which consists of designing a control board able to perform a set of prescribed functionalities. Tests on thermoacoustic machines will be performed.
Keywords: Data acquisition, circuit boards, microcontroller, thermoacoustics
Thermoacoustics studies phenomena where the interaction between acoustic wave and heat transfer effects plays a crucial role. Machines that exploit these principles have a high potential for the development of sustainable energy systems. At the Automatic Control Lab, several student projects were carried out in the last few years to advance knowledge in this field, with particular emphasis on experimental testing.
Operations such as data acquisition, system identification, and feedback control are performed at the moment through commercial hardware and software. While this has the advantage that standardized solutions and ample documentation for the user are available, there are important drawbacks. These include: high costs; delays in real-time control; compatibility issues (with associated risk of non-repeatability); limited control and authority on the functionalities of the system. For these reasons, this project aims to build up an in-house solution enabling data acquisition and real-time control.
Thermoacoustics studies phenomena where the interaction between acoustic wave and heat transfer effects plays a crucial role. Machines that exploit these principles have a high potential for the development of sustainable energy systems. At the Automatic Control Lab, several student projects were carried out in the last few years to advance knowledge in this field, with particular emphasis on experimental testing. Operations such as data acquisition, system identification, and feedback control are performed at the moment through commercial hardware and software. While this has the advantage that standardized solutions and ample documentation for the user are available, there are important drawbacks. These include: high costs; delays in real-time control; compatibility issues (with associated risk of non-repeatability); limited control and authority on the functionalities of the system. For these reasons, this project aims to build up an in-house solution enabling data acquisition and real-time control.
The main goal is the construction of a control board, featuring an embedded microcontroller and data acquisition functionalities. This board will allow: acquisition of the signals from the sensors; digital signal processing; generation of signals used for control; storage of the data (for post-processing) and web connection for monitoring results during the experiments; robust behavior to incorrect use (e.g. emergency switches). Each of these subsystems and operations will have specified technical requirements, as in real-life applications.
In order to foster this in-house approach to experimental testing, an application note with example codes will be released in open source at the end of the project.
The last task of the project consists of testing the functionalities of the microcontroller on one of the existing thermoacoustic machines.
The tasks of the project include:
- design of a control board with the prescribed functionalities
- testing on the available thermoacoustic machines
- documentation of the in-house apparatus (application note and sample codes)
The main goal is the construction of a control board, featuring an embedded microcontroller and data acquisition functionalities. This board will allow: acquisition of the signals from the sensors; digital signal processing; generation of signals used for control; storage of the data (for post-processing) and web connection for monitoring results during the experiments; robust behavior to incorrect use (e.g. emergency switches). Each of these subsystems and operations will have specified technical requirements, as in real-life applications. In order to foster this in-house approach to experimental testing, an application note with example codes will be released in open source at the end of the project. The last task of the project consists of testing the functionalities of the microcontroller on one of the existing thermoacoustic machines.
The tasks of the project include:
- design of a control board with the prescribed functionalities
- testing on the available thermoacoustic machines
- documentation of the in-house apparatus (application note and sample codes)
- Samuel Balula, balula@inspire.ethz.ch
- Dr. Andrea Iannelli, iannelli@control.ee.ethz.ch
- Prof. Roy Smith, rsmith@control.ee.ethz.ch
- Samuel Balula, balula@inspire.ethz.ch - Dr. Andrea Iannelli, iannelli@control.ee.ethz.ch - Prof. Roy Smith, rsmith@control.ee.ethz.ch