IMPORTANT - Ready-Built motion platform drive hardware is now available to buy - this does away with all the breadboard electronics and fiddly wiring - see the 64SPU-1 card page for more details.

April 09 - I've completed work on a High-Speed SPU based on the newly released PICAXE 28X2 chip - faster response and smoother control.

With the motion platforms operational for a while now I've been able to think through and implement some substantial improvements and simplifications to the platform control system. Any way in which the build process can be made easier and less expensive will make life a bit easier for  DIY'ers, and the electrical and control system is a major part of this. The control hardware has evolved through a number of variations and is now quite simple and fairly easily built by competent DIY'ers.

The basic control system is shown above. The BFF Motion Drive software runs on the sim PC or over a LAN and generates the platform motion cues. These are shared with the PID Servo Controller software which runs on the same PC as the motion driver. The PID Servo Controller software runs 2-way serial communications with the external DIY Signal Processor Unit (SPU). The SPU uses a single PICAXE 28X1 chip to act as a communication device passing platform position feedback information to the Servo Controller software and sending calculated motor speed and direction instructions on to the MD03 motor speed controllers which in turn drive the electric motors.

 

The SPU drives the MD03 speed controllers using the PICAXE chip's built-in Philips I²C capabilities with the single PICAXE 28X1 chip as the I2C bus master.

Single Chip Signal Processor Unit (SPU)

The SPU uses only a single 28X1 PICAXE chip. Its role is to collect and write the platform position feedback information to the PC, and then to read back speed demand information and pass it straight through to the motor speed controllers. It does have further important jobs - one is the critical role of detecting loss of signal from the PC. It detects time-outs on the serial data read which allows the SPU to react almost instantly to any loss of the speed demand instructions from the PC and to stop the drive to the platform before any damage is done should the PC or any of the software hang.

The position feedback send and speed demand read are done on the same Serial line to the PC (and with the correct download cable from PICAXE can be driven from a USB port instead so only a single Serial or USB port is needed - important, see note at page bottom). The comms in the basic SPU is at 9600 Baud and is fast enough to allow overall data refresh rates of 25 sets/sec or higher. The Enhanced Speed SPU comms run at 115200 baud which has a significant effect on the control quality.

The communication with the speed controllers makes use of the built-in I²C functions of the PICAXE chip and of the MD03 controllers - the wiring is simple as each controller is linked to the same two SCL and SDA lines from the SPU - the mode switches on the MD03's are simply adjusted to give each a separate "address" on the I²C bus.

There are a number of variations on the Signal Processor Unit design now available. These cover different comms speeds and different types of position feedback devices, they are-

• BASIC SPU - Uses 28X1 Chip's 8MHz internal clock, Potentiometer feedback devices and 9600 baud serial comms. Wiring details and diagrams are below. Option available for 16MHz clock speed.

• BASIC SPU + Encoder Feedback - As above but uses MA3 absolute position encoders for cleaner position feedback and an external 16MHz clock (resonator). Details on the MA3 Encoder page.

• ENHANCED SPEED SPU - Uses a small amount of additional hardware to run serial comms at the much higher 115200 baud. Also needs an external 16MHz resonator - details on the Enhanced SPU page.

• ENHANCED SPEED SPU + Speed Controller Condition Monitoring - as for the ENHANCED SPU above but adds real-time speed controller current and temperature monitoring - requires V2.05 or later of the PID Servo Controller software. Details on the Enhanced SPU page.

• FINALLY, if your don't want to try and build your own SPU a ready-built signal processor unit card is available to buy. The 40SPU-1 card uses the PICAXE 28X2 chip and runs at 40KHz - faster than the above options, and has several additional features. For more details see the 40SPU-1 card page.

PID Servo Controller Software

The control system is driven by the PID Servo Controller software that runs on the same PC as the BFF Motion Driver. This is where the servo control calculations are done using the position feedback information from the SPU and the position demand information from the Motion Driver. As of April 2009 V2.1 of the PID Servo Controller is available.

With system safety in mind the servo controller runs as a separate process on the PC and communicates with the Motion Driver through a shared memory area - so any hangs or crashes in the flight sim or Motion Driver will not stop the Servo Controller from continuing to send control data to the external hardware. This gives the system two layers of failsafe - one at the PICAXE chip level which monitors data output from the PC and the other at the Servo Controller software level which monitors data output from and the status of the Motion Driver - both are programmed to cut the drive to the platform should the data stop flowing.

This failsafe protection is necessary. The motor speed controllers act on signals which request a certain platform speed - not position! The rest of the control system has to figure out how fast and in what direction the motors should be running at any moment. If the control system fails and the speed demand instructions to the controllers are not constantly updated then the platform may simply continue to drive at the last requested speed - straight into the end-stops. The double protection built into the new design substantially reduces the chance of this happening.

The BFF PID Servo Controller is started from the Motion Driver. It uses standard PID control algorithms to determine the required platform speed to try to get the actual movement to follow the motion described by the Motion Driver. The settings used for each of the three drive outputs can be set "live" as the platform is operational so you can see immediately the effects of your adjustments (care required). The input and output motions can be compared visually, and you can see the magnitude of the individual PID terms as they change in real-time. You can also dump a data trace to file from which all of the variables can be plotted if you wish to examine your platform response in more detail.

There is a good article about PID control here should you need more detail. In short the final speed demand for each drive is made up from three elements -

• the Proportional term is the main element and sets the speed proportional to the size of the position error.

• the Integral term adjusts the speed based on the accumulating error and is useful for ensuring the pitch and roll angles return fully to their upright positions.

• the Derivative term adjusts speed on the basis of how fast the error is changing and can acts as a brake on the system to reduce overshoot. It can also be used to increase the controller reaction to sharper position demand changes. This term is the trickiest to work with as it is most affected by noise in the feedback signals which can make the response very jumpy. See the US Digital Encoder support page for how this can be improved.

The V2 PID Servo Controller allows two sets of PID settings to be specified for each actuator drive - one for in-air operations and one for on-ground. This allows a sharper control response to be specified in the drive system for runway operations (touchdown bumps, rumble effects, "off-road" excursions etc) and softer responses for in-flight motions. With the Enhanced SPU  the V2.05 software also provides real-time motor speed controller condition feedback to allow you to visually monitor the drive system condition.

For the pilot's benefit the PID Servo Driver has large start, stop and hold buttons which allow you to kill the drive quickly should you need to, and the Tab key remains programmed as a Hot Key to kill both the Motion Driver and Servo Controller with a single key stroke should your platform turn into a bucking bronco!

Here's a clip of the software and SPU in action driving 3 of the DIY linear actuators - Movie Clip

Wiring Diagrams for the Basic SPU

The Basic SPU wiring details are available below. The PID Servo Software is included with V1.5 and later of the BFF Motion Driver. Details of its use and set up are in the updated User Manual also included in the software download package. The manual is also available by itself on the downloads page. For details of the Speed Enhanced SPU design - see here.

Below - Overall system wiring, Basic SPU wiring and the 28X1 chip pin designations .......Note the SPU is built on the PICAXE Experimenter Kit breadboard (this kit has been discontinued by PICAXE - this is the replacement). The 28X1 chip flash program is included in the motion driver download package.

Have fun ...................

Important Update Information

If you are using older A.2 firmware PICAXE 28X1 chips then the serial communications require that a calibfreq statement is included in the flash program to calibrate the chip frequency. Make sure you are using the correct .bas flash program (SPU_I2C.bas) and you may have to experiment with the value used in the calibfreq statement.

If you wish to use the AXE027 USB cable then I suggest that you alter the "calibfreq -6" statement in the flash program to "calibfreq -4" and give it a shot.

ABOVE APPLIES to A.2 Firmware chips only.

August 08 - IMPORTANT The PICAXE 28X1 chip programming has been updated to allow 28X1 Firmware A.3 chips to be used. Use the SPU_I2C_16.bas program and have an external 16MHz resonator fitted to the chip if you are using a A.3 firmware chip. Or, you can use an A.3 28X1 with its internal 8 MHz resonator if you use the SPU_I2C_8.bas flash program.

Original System Page     Original SPU Design       Original Controllers & Wiring

 

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