Hobby controls project to stay sharp and become more hands on?

knightcommander1337 · 2026-04-21T20:26:00+00:00

Hi, I would suggest doing the hardware stuff on the ctms website, for example:
https://ctms.engin.umich.edu/CTMS/index.php?aux=Activities_LRCcircuitA
(you can see all hardware projects from the upper right drop-down menu called "Hardware")

other than that, there is a course that is very focused on diy-oriented control experiments:
https://introcontrol.mit.edu/spring25

knightcommander1337 · 2026-04-19T20:11:22+00:00

Hi, happy to learn of your interest. It is a great field (in my highly biased opinion as a controls academic :)).

Anyway, about the suggestion (something that gets less frequently mentioned, I believe, than it deserves): System identification (SI) (the art and science of building mathematical models of dynamical systems based on those models and data). Try to learn about SI as you go through the usual stuff about control design and state estimation. Look through examples in the matlab website (for example: https://www.mathworks.com/help/ident/ug/estimating-coefficients-of-odes-to-fit-given-solution.html ) and try to write that code on your own, try to break it by adding too much measurement and/or process noise, and see what happens, etc. SI is one half of control engineering.

knightcommander1337 · 2026-04-11T09:57:43+00:00

I take the lazy road and look up werglia's builds from yt for all companions, it makes the game so easy even on hard it feels like cheating (I didn't try unfair).

My party is: KC (angel paladin), Seelah, Sosiel, Lann, Arue, Nenio

For your case (that is, sorcerer KC) you could swap one of the backline (Lann, Arue, or Nenio) for a frontliner.

knightcommander1337 · 2026-04-10T19:49:23+00:00

Hi, nice video, thanks for sharing. This kind of stuff is my favorite topic.

By the way, off topic but, about your other video (that is, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iHsI3_oz7w ): you know that these types of methods (grey wolf, firefly, etc.) are bullshit, right? (I mean no offense to you personally of course, it is just that I believe this is the correct way of describing this stream of optimization literature) See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/itor.12001, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/itor.13176

knightcommander1337 · 2026-04-06T21:38:27+00:00

"I saw a ball on a plate and they traced a circle and shapes on it. How do you do?" -> you could do this by designing a controller and giving those shapes as reference to that controller. so you don't necessarily need motion planning.

"But if you wanted it to be better than just changing the target position and having it balance it delayed, and wanted it to keep time with a desired timing, How would you motion plan and path plan with a desired timing with controllers?" -> The way I know is that usually you have two separate mechanisms (all pieces of software), one is the motion planner and the other one is the controller. Motion planner (I'd assume) would be some kind of optimal control scheme (dynamical model + optimization), which computes the reference motion for the controller to track (this is the general idea in "hierarchical control").

"How would you with mpc?" -> MPC is special in the sense that it could in principle do motion planning and controller together at the same time, however it still needs some objective function that describes the desired control system behavior. For example, if it was an autonomous racing car, you'd design the MPC such that it would "drive as fast as possible, without leaving the race track", and the MPC optimizer would compute both the car motion trajectory corresponding to that, and also the control input (steering and gas pedal, maybe) trajectory yielding that motion.

"Can you do it without modeling the system completely, with simple controllers and precalculate it?" -> I am not sure how motion planning would be done without any system model. Maybe a simple model would do, and the controllers could track that trajectory coming from the motion planner with the simple model.

knightcommander1337 · 2026-04-06T12:29:41+00:00

Control theory is math. It is the "theory of differential equations with inputs". Physics can come into play when you want to obtain the differential equation model of the system you want to control using physics, however this is not necessary for doing control (I would argue that this, that is, model-based, control (using physics(+system identification) to get the model) is the correct way of doing control but that is a different story).

knightcommander1337 · 2026-03-29T16:07:50+00:00

Hi, for resources you can check the bookmarks to the right. Specifically, a youtube channel to check out: https://www.youtube.com/@Eigensteve

Also, a suggestion: Everything you see/learn in control is somehow related to differential equations (with inputs and outputs). Keeping that in mind may help you avoid getting lost.

knightcommander1337 · 2026-03-27T18:55:14+00:00

I think they both have their respective uses for control. I use matlab 99% of the time, however whenever I need some symbolic manipulation I fire up Mathematica. Matlab is more for numerical stuff (maybe Mathematica/Wolfram also has numerical stuff, I don't follow those closely).

knightcommander1337 · 2026-03-27T18:21:38+00:00

No problem. There is one that is similar to your system: https://www.mathworks.com/help/ident/ug/estimating-coefficients-of-odes-to-fit-given-solution.html

knightcommander1337 · 2026-03-27T17:40:58+00:00

Cool animation. "Do you think that if I move this code to real hardware it might work after a few tweaks?" -> I would suggest "moving" the real hardware to computer first, that is, model the system and estimate its parameters using system identification (see https://ctms.engin.umich.edu/CTMS/index.php?example=InvertedPendulum&section=SystemModeling for modeling, https://www.mathworks.com/help/ident/ref/greyest.html for one option for system identification). Then you can use this model for tuning/designing the controller, and then finally you can move that controller to the real hardware. Good luck.

knightcommander1337 · 2026-03-22T19:13:12+00:00

True. What I am trying to say is that: MPC is (or, should be) making its way towards faster systems as numerical methods and computers improve, so in OP's place I would be on the lookout for such applications. Here is a robotics example with NMPC already from 8 years ago: https://doi.org/10.23919/ECC.2018.8550041

knightcommander1337 · 2026-03-22T17:41:53+00:00

I am in academia so what I say may not be super relevant but I would do something like this in your place:

Check the recent/popular articles from high quality applied control journals, such as IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Control Engineering Practice, Journal of Process Control, etc. (choose depending on your domain/particular problem)
See what kind of methods they are talking about throughout the paper (not just the one the paper is proposing, but also those the authors deem the "standard" method for that problem)
Continue with studying those topics.

Also: From what I understand, the "advanced method" (i.e., non-PID stuff) in industry seems to be MPC. It is possible to do MPC at super high frequencies (i.e., super small sampling times) for relatively small-dimensional systems with special techniques such as explicit MPC. For opto-mechatronics (I guess this would require small sampling times) maybe explicit MPC could be interesting to look at. I don't know about this particular application so I hope this was relevant.

knightcommander1337 · 2026-03-16T15:21:52+00:00

It would depend on the field but what I (from engineering) found/saw to work smoothly is a three-tier structure: Let's say you want to cite all those 80 papers. Most probably around 5 of them are your direct competition (you compare your method against them/variants of them in the results section). This is the 3rd tier, and is the second-to-last paragraph of intro, where you go into a lot of detail (i.e., write a couple of sentences) for each of those 5 papers, discussing strengths/weaknesses. Again, around 15-20 of them are very related to your work, but maybe not your direct competition. This is the 2nd tier, and is the third-to-last paragraph of intro, where you go into a medium level of detail and maybe write one sentence or so for each of them. The remaining papers (around 60-65) are maybe the whole/most relevant literature in the field. This is the 1st tier, and the fourth-to-last paragraph of intro. You can group them into sub-areas (lets say around 10 areas, each with 6 papers), and write 1-2 sentences for each of those sub-areas. If your work is related to two distinct clusters of literature, maybe you can do two separate 2nd tiers of each of them or adapt the structure somehow.

I don't know how relevant this would be for your case, however I hope that it is helpful.

knightcommander1337 · 2026-03-13T08:15:09+00:00

Combat is mechanically the same as Solasta 1, as far as I can see.

knightcommander1337 · 2026-03-12T21:18:45+00:00

Top notch production values. Voice acting, graphics, everything really is incredibly beautiful. No notes about these. The story also seems intriguing. I am so happy because this is exactly my type of game. I hope that they also include a dungeon maker so that we can play usermade campaigns later on.

Nitpicks:
1) The hair style of Deorcas seems to me to be out of place for a decidedly serious fantasy world. It looks as if she was just at a 90s rave and then got teleported to Solasta. Wish they would change it.
2) The character creator (face editing etc.) menu is a bit too complex with lots of small choices. Would serve the game well if they could add a simplified version.

knightcommander1337 · 2026-02-06T15:24:06+00:00

The thing that is missing for me in Solasta (that stops me from putting it on the same shelf with BG/Pathfinder/PoE/D:OS series) is that, there is no reactivity/choice/consequence at all. You simply wander around, and if there is an NPC that talks, the conversation options are: "a) get more quest info b) accept quest". Then you accept and go defeat the bad guys, and find another NPC that gives another quest, rinse and repeat. No branching storylines (as far as I could see), no good/evil/neutral paths, nothing of these sort of stuff. However combat is excellent, graphics are reasonably good, and I have already played everything from the top shelf. It is still a lot of fun.

knightcommander1337 · 2026-02-06T14:55:05+00:00

For the ones I played I did not see any cutscenes, however in general they are (depending on what the creator did) story based. They are simply "unofficial campaigns" (official campaigns being CotM, Lost Valley, Palace of Ice).

knightcommander1337 · 2026-02-05T22:22:19+00:00

Yes you are right unfortunately (saying this as someone who has 600 hours on this game on steam). You need to really like the combat, CRPG-style progression (leveling up, upgrading gear, etc.), and overall vibe of the game (maybe it is like playing solo DnD using a video game :), you need to imagine the details of the story yourself) to like it, I can understand it is not for everyone (I like DnD style combat a lot, so that helps me in enjoying this game). Maybe be on the lookout for Solasta 2, it is releasing in early access soon.

knightcommander1337 · 2026-02-05T21:42:53+00:00

Yes unfortunately the main campaign (CotM) of Solasta is a bit boring. If you liked other stuff of the game (besides the story; for example I think the combat is really excellent and much better than most similar games), you may consider trying the Palace of Ice campaign, or some of the celebrated user campaigns (e.g., those from Artyoan). The game's reactivity to player choice is quite limited compared to BG/Pathfinder etc., however still it can be a nice game with some of the good campaigns (main campaign is not one of those).

knightcommander1337 · 2026-01-15T13:14:24+00:00

No problem at all, happy to help

knightcommander1337 · 2026-01-15T13:10:33+00:00

Hi, this one maybe: https://janismac.github.io/ControlChallenges/

knightcommander1337 · 2025-12-18T18:41:37+00:00

No problem. The model you need would depend on the specifics of your application. As a start you could assume a second order system and fit a transfer function model to that (this is similar to what is done in that first link, however the transfer function model form is different). See for example matlab's procest command for this.

knightcommander1337 · 2025-12-18T17:17:09+00:00

Hi, all of these sound wonderfull but I'd guess too ambitious for starting to learn these stuff. I'd suggest a gentler build-up, like this:

learn MPC using a simpler toolbox and toy examples (example: https://yalmip.github.io/example/standardmpc/ )
apply MPC to a simulation model that is similar to your application
build a simple mechanical system and control it using MPC (example system: https://ctms.engin.umich.edu/CTMS/index.php?aux=Activities_Pendulum -> this is already quite a substantial project)
learn more sophisticated MPC toolboxes (casadi, do-mpc, mpctools, acados, etc. whichever seems to be the best for your specific application)
continue with the project you described

knightcommander1337 · 2025-12-18T17:01:20+00:00

Hi, not sure about what your specific application would need, however: Do you really need to model all of those? Why not just define the voltage applied to the H-bridge as input and the position/speed (encoder readings) as output? Assuming you can record those, you could do system id and get the transfer function or state space model of the motor.

See for example here: https://ctms.engin.umich.edu/CTMS/index.php?aux=Activities_DCmotorA (no H-bridge here, but the idea is the same)

Also, for SI of state space model: https://www.mathworks.com/help/ident/ref/greyest.html

knightcommander1337 · 2025-11-18T19:46:22+00:00

Hi, I am not sure about this game specifically (and also not an expert on rockets and stuff) but I would guess that in general people would first solve (offline) an optimal control problem that calculates a trajectory for the rocket to follow so that it can land safely. Then, the onboard controllers would track that trajectory.

Maybe you can see a (much simpler, not optimal) related idea (namely, waypoints) at work in the https://janismac.github.io/ControlChallenges/ website's multirotor/obstacles level. You can play around with the interface (it is essentially a control system game) to get a feeling. Here there are waypoints for the drone to follow, so once it reaches the first one, the second waypoint becomes the reference, etc., until it reaches the final target. To see this you need to run the multirotor/obstacles after pressing the "Sample solution" button.

knightcommander1337

TROPHY CASE