Controle de velocidade de uma esteira transportadora

This paper describes one application of the learning methodology “Motivation-by-Challenge” in alaboratory course for the Electrical and the Control & Automation Engineering curricula at UFMG, Brazil. Students are exposed to a challenge, having to solve a problem at some performance specifications. Small scale plants are presented or proposed to be constructed. This work deals with speed control of a “conveyor”, with the DC motor and sensor taken as scrap pieces of equipment. It was applied a chopper PWM control, and the hardware wascompleted by a microcontroller. The software was written in C++ for Windows, with a graphical interface with the plant. The static characteristic of the sensor was determined, showing good linearity, and the process was modeled using a black-box method. Some types of controllers were designed, implemented and tested. After some difficulties, the challenge arrived to a good result, proving to be very motivating. Index Terms - Education in Electrical and in Control & Automation Engineering, Motivation-by-Challenge Methodology, Control Laboratory, Speed Control.