Design of a new electromechanical systems instructional laboratory

The instructional laboratory for electromechanical systems described is a combination of machinery, control systems, and computer data acquisition and control. The laboratory is design-oriented and uses computer-based data acquisition and control to augment and improve the traditional machinery laboratory. Although the scope of the experiments is much broader than that of the existing machinery laboratory, the addition of new equipment is limited (primarily by cost considerations) to the PCs, their associated signal conditioning hardware, and the software to allow high-level programming of virtual instruments. No new rotating machines will be purchased. The hardware, software, and laboratory experiments are discussed