Antenna Position Control System, Simulation and Real-Time Study

Abstract

Antenna pointing angle is the core of the quality of the transmitted/received signal. Since most of the antennas work in an outdoor environment, their pointing angles might be subjected to different types of disturbances- specifically wind gust- that might deviate them from their correct positions. The process of the position re-correction might be difficult especially if this is done manually due to the precision needed, and sometimes the location of the antenna, as well as its size, are another challenging issues that make the manual correction more difficult. This work is a study and design of a control system that can carry the antenna to the required position as well as fix it on that position by resisting the disturbances. The resistance and the removal of the effect of disturbances require a closed loop control system and application of control algorithm (The one that is used here is Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller). The total work is a simulation and real-time prototyping implantation of an antenna control system that is made of two motors to drive the azimuth and elevation subsystems. An Arduino Mega 2560 board is used as a controller through which the PID control algorithm and the other control commands will be performed. The system is programmed graphically through Simulink, and it is exploiting a PC as an interfacing tool to pass the command from and to the Arduino controller.