Chair of Systems Theory and Control Engineering
A special feature of the Chair for Systems Theory and Control Engineering is the performance of both theoretical and application-oriented research. At the same time, contributions are made to their own field of expertise and solutions are found for industry. The methods developed are also largely implemented in specially developed systems in order to prove their practical feasibility in real time. The real-time aspect is a special challenge, among other things, in the use of measurement data to realise a feedback, for example. In the case of the Vicon tracker, the position data is provided by the Vicon DataStream SDK and transmitted wirelessly to the embedded computer unit for mobile robotics applications. There they are further processed in the non-linear control. In the closed loop, not only high accuracy of data, but low latency and overall reliability of the system is very important. Vicon products ensure both.
In a recently completed research project, a transport system was developed in which several small aircraft cooperatively position a roped load in space. In contrast to previous research, which neglected the flexibility of the ropes, this was explicitly taken into account. The additional effort enables faster and yet smooth transitions of the load compared to the simplified case. For the application, flying machines developed by the chair (so-called tricopters) with swivelling propellers are used, which are controlled using Vicon data. Vicon trackers additionally map the movement of the load to prove the stable realisation of a desired trajectory.
Thanks to the very well developed customer network of prophysics, the research series of the Saarland University has already found further cooperation partners.
Video example tricopter:
Video example quadcopter:
