Projects
Here you can find information on some of the projects we have worked on.
Motor Vibration Test Rig
This was a simple and short development project we did for an aero engine manufacturer. A vibration test control rig required updating, the existing belt driven motor setup took offered poor control and accuracy and changes in speed were controlled manually introducing experimentation error. Using a high performance servo stepper motor from JVL and ActiveX controls we were able to design a simple program which allowed for fine control of the motor. The user defined motor speed profile is displayed by means of a graph with the actual speed feedback from the motor plotted in real-time also being plotted alongside.
Anope Dissipation
The creation of micro nonporous and nano-tube structures can be achieved through a process of anope dissipation. This process involves regulating the voltage and the current flow through a circuit which has been submersed in an acidic bath, over time an oxide layer can be grown on the cathode terminal of the circuit. In order to achieve a better understanding of the growth of this oxide layer time critical measurements of current and voltage were taken allowing the resistance of the circuit (which is proportional to the overall oxide growth) to be calculated. Using our expertise in LabVIEW we were able to offer an automated process, which would remove the need for an operator to supervise the experiment as well as replacing manual observational readings with more accurate digital ones also allowing direct entry into spreadsheets. The program automatically controlled stepped and level voltages as well as the current flow with the final system capable of running experiments from minutes to days. The results of this project have given a greater understanding into the way the oxide layer can be grown using this anope dissipation method which has in turn lead to new processes in nano-tube creation
Optical Fibre Link Emulator
This project was completed for the
University of Bath and
involved experimental simulation of an optical fibre link. In real
world environments signals travelling through optical fibres suffer
a number of different effects. It is clear that signal attenuation is the most
obvious of the effects but in practice we also find that signals are also subjected to switching
attenuations (as they pass over connections and are routed), polarisation mode dispersion and polarisation mode
losses. In order to study these effects many kilometres of fibre and
highly expensive test systems are required.
The University wanted a simple low cost system which could
demonstrate some of these effects, which could be used as a teaching
aid. The final system was able to demonstrate the effects of
polarisation mode losses along different optical fibre types as well
as simple switching losses through switching. Rapid automated
switching and control through a GPIB network were required in order
to vary the polarisation plane of laser light whilst losses were
recorded and calculated on oscilloscopes.
