A Multidisciplinary Approach for Model Predictive Control Education: A Lego Mindstorms NXT-based Framework

This work introduces an educational framework based on the Lego Mindstorms NXT robotic platform used to outline both the theoretical and practical aspects of the Model Predictive Control (MPC) theory. The framework has been developed in the widely used MatLab/Simulink environment. A two-wheeled inverted pendulum is considered as hands-on experimental scenario. For such a system, starting from its mathematical modeling, an established design methodology is presented aiming to outline step-by-step the predictive controller implementation on a low power architecture. This methodology stress the design of a non-linear MPC controller on a low power embedded system, pruning the designer to deal with hard real time constraints without impacting the overall design requirements. The effectiveness of this multidisciplinary approach is shown through this presentation and demonstrated with experimental results.