Introduction to Mechatronics (FMD401)

Week 5
Signal conditioning
DR/ MOHAMED EL TAHER MOHAMED 1
Lecture Outline

Introduction

Signal conditioning

System Actuators

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Introduction

The basic elements of a mechatronic system.

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Signal conditioning

▪ Too small and have to be amplified,

▪ Contain interference which has to be removed,

▪ Be non-linear and require linearization,

▪ Be analogue and have to be made digital,
▪ Be digital and have to be made analogue,
▪ Be a resistance change and have to be made a current change,
into
▪ Be a voltage change and have to be made into a suitable size current
change,

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Signal conditioning
1- Protection to prevent damage to the next element, e.g., a
microprocessor, as a result of high current or voltage.
▪ Thus, there can be series current limiting resistors, fuses to break if the current is too high,
polarity protection and voltage limitation circuits
2- Getting the signal into the right type of signal.
▪ This can mean making the signal into a d.c. voltage or current. Thus, for example, the
resistance change of a strain gauge has to be converted into a voltage change.
3- Getting the level of the signal right.
▪ The signal from a thermocouple might be just a few millivolts. If the signal is to be fed
into an analogueto-digital converter for inputting to a microprocessor then it needs to be
made much larger, volts rather than millivolts.

4- Eliminating or reducing noise.

▪ For example, filters might be used to eliminate main noise from a signal

5- Signal manipulation, e.g., making it a linear function of some variable.

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 Signal conditioning

▪ The voltage gain of the amplifier being the ratio of the output and
input voltages when each is measured relative to the earth.
▪ The input impedance of an amplifier is defined as the input voltage divided
by the input current
▪ the output impedance being the output voltage divided by the
output current.
▪ The operational amplifier It has two inputs, known as the inverting input
(2) and the non-inverting input (1).

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Signal conditioning

Pin connections for a 741 operational amplifier

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Signal conditioning

1- Inverting amplifier
The input is taken to the inverting input through a resistor R1 with
the non-inverting input being connected to ground

The potential difference across R1 is (Vin-VX).

Hence, for an ideal operational amplifier with an
infinite gain, and hence VX = 0, the input
potential Vin can be considered to be across R1.

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Signal conditioning

▪ The potential difference across R2 is (VX - Vout ) and thus, since VX is

zero for the ideal amplifier, the potential difference across R2 is -Vout.
Thus

▪ The voltage gain of circuit

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Signal conditioning

Example : if vi= 0.5V, calculate

1) The output voltage

2) The current in the 10 kΩ resistor

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System Actuators

The basic elements of a mechatronic system.

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System Actuators

▪ Mechanisms are devices which can be motion converters

▪ Transform motion from one form to some other required form motion (linear
into rotational motion).
Mechanical elements can include the use of linkages, cams,
gears, rack and- pinion, chains, belt drives, etc.

1. The rack-and-pinion can be used to convert

rotational motion to linear motion.
2. Parallel shaft gears might be used to reduce a shaft speed.
Bevel gears might be used for the transmission of
3. rotary motion through 90°.
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System Actuators

▪ The motion of any rigid body can be a combination of

translational and rotational motions

Motion required for robot to pick up a pencil

▪ it is necessary to break down the motion into combinations of
translational and rotational motions
▪ so that we can design mechanisms to carry out each of these
components of the motion.

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System Actuators

Freedom and constraints

▪ The number of degrees of freedom is the number of
components of motion that are required in order to
generate the motion
▪ Body that is free in space can move in three,
independent, mutually perpendicular directions and
rotate in three ways about those directions (have six
degrees of freedom)
▪ Joint is constrained to move along a line then its
translational degrees of freedom are reduced to one
▪ Joint which has one translational degree of freedom and
one rotational degree of freedom
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System Actuators

▪ Without any constraints a body would have six degrees of freedom

▪ Provided we have no redundant constraints then the number of degrees
of freedom would be 6 minus the number of constraints

▪ The principle of least constraint: the minimum number of

constraints should be used for fixing a body or guiding it to a
particular type of motion (kinematic design)
▪ Ex: degrees of freedom of shaft to 1
▪ The minimum number of constraints to do this is
▪ More constraints than this will give redundancies
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System Actuators

▪ Each part of a mechanism which has motion relative to some

other part is termed a link
▪ For a rigid body which has two or more points of
attachment to other links, these being termed nodes
▪ A sequence of joints and links is known as a kinematic
chain
▪ Ex : kinematic chain, a motor car engine
▪ Link 1 is the crankshaft,
▪ link 2 the connecting rod,
▪ link 3 the fixed frame slider,
▪ link 4 the i.e. piston
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System Actuators

▪ The designs of many mechanisms are based on two basic forms of

kinematic chains, the four-bar chain and the slider–crank chain
1- The four-bar chain: consists of four links connected to give four joints
about which turning can occur

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System Actuators

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Thank You!