Design of an industrial controls laboratory

To better prepare our students for new opportunities, Ohio University has developed an industrial controls laboratory for electrical engineers. The laboratory requires the student to apply a theoretical controls background to a mechanical process, controlled with traditional industry components. A Commercially available laboratory set-up containing both a hydraulic and thermal system is used for the experiments. Experiments were designed with the goal of proceeding from a highly structured format, to an open ended format. Students practice their skills at root locus analysis, eigensystem realization, D/A converters, A/D converters and transducers. The design of one of the experiments is presented. This paper also includes an evaluation of the performance of the students which identified concepts that are not well understood from the classroom