A compact laboratory setup for electric drives education

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1640312 (Table of Contents)

Electrical machines and electrical drives have a large number of applications in the industry such as automobile industry, energy equipments, robotics etc. These industries and research and development institutes, are in constant demand of qualified graduates who are trained in the respective fields. The academic institutes regularly update the curricula for training the graduates in line with these demands. Laboratory experiments, being an integral part of the curriculum, also needs regular updates. However, setting up and upgradation of a laboratory can be a difficult process due to financial and space constraints. Hence, development of a compact, low cost and easy to operate laboratory setup is always in demand. Keeping in view the above needs, work has been carried in this thesis for the upgradation of an existing Mechatronics lab setup, Mechatro Lab. It is a compact and economical laboratory setup for the study of electrical machines. It is capable of demonstrating the working of various AC and DC motors. The setup, although good for performing basic open loop experiments, lacked closed loop control experiments. Moreover, the drive circuitry and the controller are obsolete. This setup, if upgraded, had the potential to be an excellent teaching aid for understanding the basics as well as control techniques of electrical machines. This thesis aims to replace the obsolete hardware components and add closed loop speed control experiments to the existing experiments. The closed loop speed control experiments have been implemented in computer software, hardware and their results are presented.