Laboratory Fluid Power Systems

Hydraulic and pneumatic drive systems Laboratory is the result of the permanent collaboration with corporations as SIEMENS (Germany), FESTO (Germany), Parker Hannifin (U.S.A.) and National Instruments (U.S.A.) and is devoted for the synthesis and design of the digital electrohydraulic and electro pneumatic control systems.

The laboratory allows interactive training, by means of specialized setups, of the students from the following domains: energy engineering, mechanical engineering and mechatronics, hydraulic and pneumatic machinery, automotive and aerospace engineering, robotics, etc. The FESTO hydraulic and pneumatic setups allow to students to identify components and processes by “direct access” method, under the supervision of an academic staff member.

The students have access to 12 PXI-NI Data Acquisition Systems from the electro-hydraulic and electro-pneumatic control systems, of which operation can be simulated in real time by means of LabVIEW R15 software. This software package allows the control of heterogeneous complex process, and the interfacing with MATLAB software components such as Simulink, Control Toolbox and Identification Toolbox. The newest facility of this laboratory is the run of the MATLAB compiled programs in FPGA control systems, widely used in power systems, aerospace, automotive engineering, robotics, etc.