Rice Spendulap: A Laboratory Apparatus to Illustrate Key Concepts in Kinematics, Dynamics, and Control

摘要

The Rice SPENDULAP is a spherical pendulum apparatus that is useful for illustrating a variety of important topics in kinematics, dynamics, and control. This paper describes how the SPENDULAP can be sued to supplement the classroom so as to enhance students' understanding of three-dimensional kine-matics and dynamics. The paper to also describes the use of the SPENDULAP to illustrate key topics in nonlinear systems analysis, such as linearization and the state portrait. Finally, the use of the SPENDULAP as an example for simulation and nonlinear control is described. More information on the SPENDULAP is available at http://dacent. rice.edu/users/ghorbel/index.html.