A force-feedback joystick for control and robotics education - affordable software for educational institutions

Author

Osborne, Padraig ; McLellan, Ryan ; McEvoy, Neil ; Hashtrudi-Zaad, Keyvan

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Queen´´s Univ., Canada

Volume

24

Issue

5

fYear

2004

Firstpage

74

Lastpage

77

Abstract

This article describes a project that converts low-cost commercially available force feedback joysticks into flexible experimental facilities for control systems education and virtual reality simulations without hardware modifications. The software allows educational institutions to offer affordable hands-on laboratories, featuring a traditional or discovery-learning approach. With intuitive software running in the MATLAB environment, it is now possible to introduce large undergraduate classes to control engineering.

Keywords

computer aided instruction; computer aided software engineering; control engineering computing; control engineering education; engineering facilities; student experiments; virtual reality; control engineering; control systems education; discovery-learning approach; flexible experimental facilities; force-feedback joystick; intuitive software; virtual reality simulations; Control engineering education; Control system synthesis; Educational institutions; Educational robots; Force control; Force feedback; Hardware; Laboratories; Robot control; Virtual reality;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Control Systems, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1066-033X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MCS.2004.1337866

Filename

1337866