Pre-requisite: Recommended 70320
Robotics and machine vision are specialised aspects of mechatronics, the fusion of digital control with electronics and mechanisms to realise an application of value to manufacturing and other industries. Mechatronic control system design requires the ability to embrace nonlinearities in both the system and the controller. Kinematic methods are taught for the design and analysis of robot manipulators and similar mechanisms. Aspects of control theory cover modeling and synthesis of nonlinear controllers such as the saturating drives demanded for real life actuator systems. The vision syllabus ranges over the variety of image acquisition systems now available, leading on to methods of image analysis. Image filtering and edge detection are compared with more pragmatic methods and examples are taken from research outcomes such as the vision guidance system now being implemented on agricultural tractors.