The Coupled Drives Tension and Velocity Control Model simulates the use of a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller to he tension and the angular velocity of the pulley in a coupled drive system.  This system consist in two drive motors and a pulley which are connected through elastic belts. The jockey pulley is mounted on an arm, that is supported by a spring whose elongation is an indirect measure of the tension in the drive belt. The motors torque can be controlled either manually or with PID, while the motor movement affect the tension and velocity in the pulley. The velocity can be obtained immediately and using the jockey pulley measurements (angle or position) we obtain the tension.

This EJS simulation is based on a real system running at the Spanish Open University for Distance Education (UNED).  The real system is used as a remote laboratory for learning purposes and a different application created with EJS (visually identical to this simulation) serves as graphical user interface to operate the remote laboratory.

Please note that this resource requires at least version 1.6 of Java (JRE).