In our simulation scenario, we will model the motion of two cars. The car in front will move slower, while the car behind will move faster. This can be likened to the situation when you suddenly realize that there is someone in front of you at a corner turn, or when someone unexpectedly enters your lane.
Objective
Our goal is to use a simple PID controller to set the distance between cars to a desired value.
Tools Used:
Colink: An interactive environment, ideal for designing and simulating time-varying systems.
Recurdyn: A software used to describe the mechanical system.
Steps:
Defining the Mechanical System:
We define the mechanical system using Recurdyn. Our system consists of two cars.
We determine the mass, velocity and acceleration of each car.
We write the equations to calculate the distance between the cars.
Defining a Control System in Colink:
We define a control system in Colink. This control system will consist of a PID controller.
We set the gain (K_p), integral time constant (K_i) and derivative time constant (K_d) parameters of the PID controller.
Running the Simulation:
We run the simulation in Colink.
During the simulation we monitor the distance between the cars and the output signal of the PID controller.
Result:
At the end of the simulation, we observe that the PID controller is able to adjust the distance between the cars to the desired value. This shows that Colink can be used to simulate dynamic systems and PID controllers are an effective tool for controlling such systems.