Angle Up

Laser Gimbal

 
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Project Objectives

At Apex Industries; I was designated in designing a laser beam gimbal. Using Simulink and MATLAB to actuate robot performance as well as designing a mathematical model to calculate x, y, z position coordinates in a CNC machine.

 

 

preliminary design

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The diagram on the right is the Phase I of research project configuration. The BSM Pan Servo, the BSM Tilt Servo and the Mirror are the fundamental components of this design.

 

The diagram on the right is the Phase I of the research project configuration. The BSM Pan Servo, the BSM Tilt Servo, and the mirror are the fundamental components of this design.

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problems & recognition of needs

 

The most challenging obstacle was finding two identical motors. During the design/research phase, it was discovered that most of the DC motors include their personal gearbox. This was a problem because gearboxes produce undesirable jerky movements. This mechanical error caused a significant problem for the controller. During research on various types of motors, I found that the motors in hard drives have zero backlashes and are very accurate.

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A hard drive's linear motor is very accurate due to its high digital resolution which is equivalent to an analog signal. The beam steering mechanism [BSM] must pan and tilt as smoothly as possible to reflect the laser beam alignment of a moving target 'retro-reflector'. Therefore, various types of bearings were used to allow the gimbal to move smoothly. The encoders can record real-time measurements of pan and tilt angles.