Equipment and Facilities
- Laboratory: Room 1-004, x8-8729
- The experimental portion of 2.737 takes place in the new d'Arbeloff Laboratory for Information Systems and Technology. Twelve identical workstations are available, and this is a key-access room which will be open to enrolled students.
- Computers:
- New for the fall of 1998 are networked, loaded, 300 MHz Pentiums which Intel donated to this teaching laboratory. All the machines are running Windows NT 4.0 and are configured to allow for easy file sharing between them.
- Instrumentation:
- Each workstation is equipped with Tektronics instrumentation: a TDS400 series digital oscilloscope, a function generator, and a power supply. Each oscilloscope includes a floppy drive, and students are highly encouraged to make use of experimental traces in their reports.
- Control Hardware:
- The most significant of many changes for the fall of 1998 is the switch to DS1102 PC-control boards by dSPACE. Each board contains 4 channels each of analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion, 2 channels of quadrature encoder input, digital I/O channels, and pulse-width-modulated outputs. Most importantly, it also had an onboard TMS320C31 digital signal processor. This processor handles all of the real-time applications, and the host computer is free for monitoring or data gathering operations. The board can be programmed conventionally (in C or Assembly), is specifically designed to be used in conjunction with the Real Time Workshop toolbox in MATLAB. The designer can prototype and test a controller in Simulink, and then simply select a menu item which transforms the block diagram into C-code, compiles it, and downloads it to the C31 processor. Having this board in the lab will allow us to separate the teaching of concepts and the practical implementation of them. We expect students to have a full working knowledge of the hardware, but where appropriate can lessen tedious coding.
- Project Kits:
- Also known as "nerd kits", these suitcases contain a breadboard, power supply, amplifier, component kit, toolkit, cables, and custom interface board to the DS1102. All experimental circuit design will be prototyped on them, and additional hardware (such as a motor) will be added as needed. Again, they are new for the fall of 1998 and each student will be assigned one for the duration of the course.
Return to the Mechanical Engineering Department. Maintained by 2.737-ta@mit.edu
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This page is written by Steve Ludwick
Last updated: July 28, 1998
Copyright 1998, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
All Rights Reserved.