This is a series of posts regarding the basic aspects of controlling a motor.
Being an open system, a robot interacts with the environment.
u=input
y=output
The input is made of what the robot senses from the environment and the exterior energy it gets, while the output is the action it takes over the environment.
Robots are complex systems with several inputs and outputs. In order to survive, a system has to optimize its inputs and outputs.
At its simplest, a robot is this system:
where the energy input can be a battery. This simple system gets exterior energy from the environment and produces mechanical work through its actuator. I doubt such a simple system would survive but it is a good example for the purpose of this article.
There are several types of exterior energy a robot can use and other several types of actuators, but as the most efficient way of controlling it is through computing which works with electricity, I will consider this system:
The control system has 3 parts:
- sensor control
- actuator control
- mixed control
(This is the same as our biological neurons: some control our muscles, some sense the environment and some proceed information in between.)
For this article I will consider this subsystem:
