Toronto Metropolitan University
Department of Aerospace Engineering
AER822 Assignment #1
Modeling and Simulation Project Requirements
Instructor: Dr. G. Liu
Introduction
This modeling and simulation project is designed to help you gain in depth understanding of
the lab helicopter system and master system modeling and simulation techniques, which are
essential for system design in general. This project also serves as a preparation for the team
project. In fact, modeling and simulation is the first step of the control system design of the
lab helicopter.
This is an individual project and is worth 15% of the total mark for the course. The mark
awarded will depend on how well the work is performed and how well you can report on your
modeling and simulation procedure and results. You should balance your work on this
project in parallel with your ongoing progress towards the group-tasks; the outputs of this
project should be a useful tool in the later development.
Requirements
The goal of this modeling and simulation project is to develop dynamic model of the 3DOF
lab helicopter and to simulate set point control and trajectory control. The project shall be
conducted in the following steps:
1) System Modeling and Analysis: Getting familiar with the lab helicopter is essential, which
can be achieved through operating the helicopter and reading the Quanser documents
and course materials that are posted on the D2L. Analysis and modeling of key
components shall be conducted and reported, including the actuators and sensors.
Model validity shall be justified and modeling assumptions shall be clarified.
2) Simulation Software and Programming: Based on the system modeling and analysis,
simulation experiments shall be designed, programmed and performed. Various
simulation scenarios should be studied, including set point control and trajectory control
of the 3DOF lab helicopter. SimuLink is recommended for conducting the simulations.
To help you start up quickly, a sample SimuLink program is provided.
3) Simulation Results and Discussions: The simulation results shall be recorded clearly
with plots, tables, etc. Discussions on the simulation results are expected in reporting
the simulation results.
4) Report Writing: The report shall report the component and system models derived,
analysis, assumptions, simulation scenarios and results, and any other materials
deemed relevant. Source simulation codes are required. Simulation results shall be
reported in a clear and logical way, with necessary discussions. The report shall be
written in a professional format.
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Toronto Metropolitan University
Department of Aerospace Engineering
Hints and Suggestions
For the purpose of the project, you may treat the elevation motion separately (assume it
fixed at a convenient value). In particular you may want to demonstrate:
- Set-point control (e.g., go to point X, and stay there)
- Trajectory Control (e.g., follow the travel profile X (t)). You may comment on types
of trajectories that are feasible or well matched to the capabilities of the helicopter.
- Performance tuning. How well can you make your controller perform? What does it
mean to perform well? How do you assess performance?
As with any exercise in engineering design, high-level planning of the overall simulation
structure can make for simpler integration. Use your functional analysis skills from Systems
Engineering and decompose the requirements for the project. Any effective simulation must
make a clear distinction between the parts of the software that represent the simulator (i.e.,
calculation and propagation of the true system state) and the controller (i.e., reads sensors,
calculates appropriate actions, issues commands to actuators). It is vital that you pay special
attention to the interfaces between these modules. The controller never sees the true state
of the system – it only has access to the quantities its sensors can observe. Defining clear
interfaces between components is an important part of the design of this whole simulation.
Evaluation
The simulation project is worth 15% of the overall course grade and will be marked according
to the following scheme:
System Modeling and Analysis
Simulation Software and Programming
Simulation Results and Discussions
Report
Total
35%
25%
25%
15%
100%
Deadline and Submission
Submit one report electronically through D2L no later than 5:00 pm on Tuesday, Feb. 6th,
2024.
Note:
Please note this overrides any information provided in the course outline.
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