Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Google colaboratory

This is an entry about my Google Colaboratory documents.

Google colaboratory allows you to execute Python code in virtual machines so that it is possible to execute and share code without having owning a Python execution environment. You just need to have a browser.

Colaboratory documents are Python Jupyter notebooks that allow you to include not only code but also text, formulas and images.

The colaboratory documents can be downloaded on your computer as Jupyter .ipynb documents and executed offline in a localPython evironment.

To access colaboratory you need to have a Google account. This is enough to see the documents, but if you want to execute your content, you must save a copy in your own Google Drive account.

Below yoy can find links to some documents created in Colabortory. They all import a Python calc module that includes support functions such as, for example, plot11, plot1n and plotnn that assist in curve drawing. The module is accessible thanks to GitHub.

The colaboratory document list is constantly updated. The current list of documents is accessible my Master Colaboratory Document.

What follows is a list of currently available documents. See the previous list for an updated list.

The documents organized by categories. 

Control

Documents related to mechanical and control subjects

Pendulum
Document that explains the physical behavior of a pendulum and that allows to simulate it.
https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1GAjq-R4cTyVu90KjOd9P0_r4L1dNJNx9



DC Motor
A document that explains how a DC motor works and also allows you to simulate its dynamic behavior.
https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1uOeXitZxeUZZdZlmT8d5pZNUr0QXrb5E#scrollTo=t6-DFI-JwoZr


Inverted pendulum
A document that deals with the control of an inverted pendulum, which is intrinsically unstable, and which explains how it can be stabilized using a PID controller and an electric motor.
https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1Jpje3UWRr-ZvVKR1SlcwoM-KI1OGBNYA#scrollTo=fmPgBsrTlnvd


 

Analog electronics

Documents related to analog electronics 

Common Emitter
Document on the operation of a simple amplifier based on a BJT in common emitter configuration.
https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1o57vd-1jAhsuXuMI_HxixXEJiKh7cqGU
 
  

Thursday, March 1, 2018

SLab updated to v1.3

I have just updated the SLab project in Github.

The new version afects three of the python source files:
slab.py, slab_meas.py, slab_fft.py

With those changes SLab should work both in Python 2.7 and 3.x branchs.

I have also added a new script slabTest.py in the main code folder. This scripts lets you check the basic SLab functionality so you can verify that you have a working SLab environment.

Current SLab version has been checked on Windows under Anaconda with Python 2.7.10 and 3.5.1.
Basic functionality has also been verified on Linux with Python 2.7.