Integrating experiments in control education

This paper describes the process of renewing the role and educational setup of do-it-yourself experiments within the bachelor and master program of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at TU/e. In particular, the courses in systems and control are considered. A new infrastructure for performing experiments has been realized with two main features. Firstly, the infrastructure allows for letting large numbers of students perform experiments simultaneously at an arbitrary location. Secondly, hardware setups were developed that allow for a gradual increase in complexity from simple to real-life industrial systems.