Fun control experiments with Matlab and a joystick

The paper describes real-time simulation programs that were developed for an undergraduate control systems course. The implementation of three classical experiments (the ball and beam, the inverted pendulum, and the flexible beam) as Matlab m-files is described. The visualization and animation capabilities of Matlab provide a realistic perception of the behavior of the testbeds, without actual hardware being needed. A joystick interface enables users to control the systems manually, providing a fun and educational experience. Automatic controllers can be designed to gain in-sight into a variety of concepts, including stabilization of unstable systems, root-locus properties, frequency-domain analysis and design, robustness, and discrete-time implementation of continuous-time systems. The paper is submitted to the conference as a poster/interactive paper. Attendees can view the experiments on a laptop, interact with them through a joystick, and ask any questions that they may have. The software is available from the Web at: www.ece.utah.edu/∼bodson/fun. The joystick interface is a dynamic link library file requiring a Windows operating system.