Design projects for digital and process control courses

Design projects for two advanced undergraduate control courses: process instrumentation and control engineering; and digital control, are discussed. Projects emphasize practical as well as theoretical aspects of design and implementation of control system loops. Projects of the process control course emphasize implementation aspects such as sensors, signal conditioning and transmission, actuators and PID controller tuning. Projects of the digital control course emphasize theoretical aspects such as modeling, linear analysis, digital controller design and closed loop system performance simulation as well as practical aspects such as actual implementation of digital controllers using a digital computer. The programs MATLAB and Simulink are used to analyze the system, design controllers and simulate controller performance. The program LabVIEW is used to facilitate the implementation of controllers. These projects help students to understand theoretical and practical aspects of control systems and serve as active learning tools that accomplish a lot more than can be accomplished in the classroom and even with design projects whose performance are only simulated in a computer.