Date of Award

2013

Degree Type

Thesis

Department

Chemical and Biomedical Engineering

First Advisor

Richter, Hanz

Subject Headings

Treadmills (Exercise equipment), Electric controllers, Computer algorithms, Control treadmill, PID control treadmill, SMC control treadmill

Abstract

Treadmills providing linear continuous movement are used for robotic testing of prostheses in order to study their operating characteristics. However, traditional exercise treadmills are not able to simulate various conditions such as avoiding an obstacle, climbing, descending, reversing direction, or stopping instantly. The focus of this thesis is to examine control algorithms (position, speed and force) for the drive mechanism of a research treadmill to fulll the gap in the situations described above. The system consists of a power supply, a computer with Matlab, and the treadmill that includes a DC motor, a pulley and belt. Also, an external encoder is installed on the motor to measure the position of the belt. The bond graph method is used to model the system to nd the symbolic transfer function. Simultaneously, system identication techniques are used to estimate a numeric transfer function. Some parameters of the model are experimentally measured, and the rest are extracted by matching two transfer functions. Control algorithms such as proportional-integralderivative and sliding mode are implemented in the system for simulation and realtime operation. The results demonstrate that this system is suitable for producing motion paths that traditional treadmills cannot, and it can handle dicult-to-model situations such as the synchronized movement of the treadmill with a prosthesistesting robot

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