Personal tasks of this week:
Task: Resolve issues with circuit simulation and test on swingup problem
Definition: To ensure that the circuit will work on the current swingup problem that we are trying to solve, a full scale simulation of that optimization problem must be created and tested.
Completion: The task is completed. We were able to create a formulation of the 6 variable swingup problem in terms of the constraints. Thomas was able to create an automated method of calculating the resistances needed for each of the constraints on excel. Using this, we were able to very simply create the full contraints of our circuit. To verify that the solution works, we tried the first, last, and a random middle problem to optimizer. For all of the situations, the majority of the solutions were around 0.5% of the optimal solution, with one variable being around 2.5% of the solution. We also did a voltage sweep on the cost function voltage to verify that the previously identified “sweet spot” was the same for all of the problems.
Next Steps:
Now that the current optimization problem is verified to be correct, the pcb must be created and manufactured as soon as possible.
Verification & Validation:
As the circuit simulation is completed, we can now perform tests to gauge its accuracy on the pcb. Namely, we can run the test suite T3 as we defined in our report.
A manufactured PCB that implements the analog QP solver
We will run the test with three different starting positions to verify the correctness of the solver.
Overall progress assessment:
My progress is on-schedule, as all of my tasks this week have been completed.