How to fix a robot using duty cycle measurement on an oscilloscope

Tony and Ian from Tektronix explain duty cycle definition and how to use duty cycle measurement to fix a robot.

In September 2011, Tektronix donated an oscilloscope to ACCESS Academy, a Portland school for talented and gifted kids.

Tektronix sent Tony and Ian to teach the class how to use their new oscilloscope and how to use the duty cycle measurement on an oscilloscope to examine a pulse width modulation signal.

Duty Cycle Definition
If there is a signal that is rapidly turning on and off, duty cycle is the percentage of time that the signal is on. For example, if the signal is on for 4/5 of the time and off for 1/5 of the time, it has a duty cycle of 80%.

Duty Cycle Measurement
In the demo, you will learn why it is important to verify that a signal has the correct duty cycle.

Thanks to Judy Berck at Tektronix and Mr. Garcia at ACCESS Academy for arranging the donation. Also, Brett Nelson for designing and building Babuinobot: the lovable open-source robot used in the demonstration.

To learn more about the oscilloscope donation, visit:
http://bit.ly/tektronix-donation

For more oscilloscope tutorial support, check out http://www.tektronix.com/learning/oscilloscope-tutorial/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• duty cycle measurement
• duty cycle definition
• robot
• how to fix a robot
• oscilloscope
• how to

[evilseed880]

how come only tony talks in the videos.  Ian says barely anything.

[haileymurdock]

Great job!

[undees]

@widgit117 During the full hour (cut heavily down here), Tony described the differences between the real-world shape and the whiteboard one--but we didn't go into huge depth on the reasons. These kids were asking so many awesome questions (e.g., advantages of FM over AM) that it was all we could do to answer those and still get through all the demos.

[widgit117]

Did you explain why the falling edge followed an exponential curve while the raising edge did not show that?