Establishing a cost effective embedded control and robotics engineering program optimal control of a two wheeled robot

The cost of establishing a traditional control systems and robotics program usually runs into many thousands of dollars. As a result many undergraduate and graduate STEM institutions are unable to establish these important STEM programs in their curriculum. This paper introduces an alternative method of teaching important control system and robotics concepts using LEGO kits and ROBOTC and MATLAB software. This paper is the second in a series of papers that explore the extent to which LEGO kits can be used to introduce important control system and robotics concepts to both undergraduate and graduate students. Such a program has been successfully implemented in NYIT´s school of electrical and computer engineering. In this paper we discuss the control design of a two wheeled mobile robot. The dynamic model of the multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) system is nonlinear in nature. The nonlinear model is first linearized and then controlled by designing a full state feedback, LQR and H₂ controllers. The system performance of each controller is simulated and compared with each other. Finally, the controllers are implemented and their performance is validated on the actual system. The establishment for embedded control system of two wheeled robot is design based on a MATLAB environment. Implementation of the software is completed using ROBOTC.