PID Ball Balance Project Ni myRIO Selection

[JCG77]

Good afternoon,

I am a senior year mechanical engineering student and I'm working on my thesis project. I am creating a teaching aide for students. I am trying to balance a ball on touch screen pad using a microcontroller. Here's a link to show you what it is that I am trying to create: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4OmVLc_oDw.

I am looking at purchasing a NI myRIO for my microcontroller. I want to be able to send output signals to servo motors to control the position of the ball on the touchpad. And help or suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated. Would anybody please explain to me which microcontroller would be best for this application? And if you can, what servo motors would work best with an NI myRIO for this project. WIll I require a motor drive if I use a myRIO? 

Thank you kindly,

[JDragon · Accepted solution]

Hi JCG77,

If you are interested in purchasing a myRIO, I recommend contacting NI. The specs can be found here:

http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/211694

I didn't find any specific recommendations for servo motors on the myRIO. I did find a community example for controling a motor on a myRIO. So it would appear that you do not require any additional modules

https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-36270

I don't know that you would be able to provide enough current to any substantial motor/servo but here is a link to the Digilent Motor Adaptor for myRIO. If you would like a recommendation, I would suggest speaking with digilent. A link to there website can be found on that page as well:

http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/212739