You are a mechatronic engineer who has been assigned the task of designing and instrumenting a mechatronic system. In the final project report, you will have to describe the steps of establishing the design/performance specifications for the system, selecting and sizing sensors, transducers, actuators, drive systems, controllers, signal conditioning and interface hardware, and software for the instrumentation and component integration of this system. Keeping this in mind, write a project proposal given the following information:
1. Select a process (plant) as the system to be developed. Describe the plant indicating the purpose of the plant, how the plant operates, what is the system boundary (physical or imaginary), what are important inputs (e.g., voltages, torques, heat transfer rates, flow rates), response variables (e.g., displacements, velocities, temperatures, pressures, currents, voltages), and what are important plant parameters (e.g., mass, stiffness, resistance, inductance, conductivity, fluid capacity). You may use sketches.
2. Indicate the performance requirements (or operating specifications) for the plant (i.e., how the plant should behave under control). You may use any available information on such requirements as accuracy, resolution, speed, linearity, stability, and operating bandwidth.
3. Give any constraints related to cost, size, weight, environment (e.g., operating temperature, humidity, dust-free or clean room conditions, lighting, wash-down needs), etc.
4. Indicate the type and the nature of the sensors and transducers present in the plant and what additional sensors and transducers might be needed for properly operating and controlling the system.
5. Indicate the type and nature of the actuators and drive systems present in the plant and which of these actuators have to be controlled. If you need to add new actuators (including control actuators) and drive systems, indicate such requirements in suffiscient detail.
6. Mention what types of signal modification and interfacing hardware would be needed (i.e., filters, amplifiers, modulators, demodulators, ADC, DAC, and other data acquisition and control needs). Describe the purpose of these devices. Indicate any software (e.g., driver software) that may be needed along with this hardware.
7. Indicate the nature and operation of the controllers in the system. State whether these controllers are adequate for your system. If you intend to add new controllers, briefly give their nature, characteristics, objectives, etc. (e.g., analog, digital, linear, nonlinear, hardware, software, control bandwidth).
8. Describe how the users and/or operators interact with the system, and the nature of the user interface requirements (e.g., graphic user interface or GUI).