A Generic, Hands-On Control System Laboratory

As the availability of more powerful computers and sophisticated graphics increases, many control laboratory courses tend toward theoretical simulations and away from physical demonstrations to illustrate course topics. This paper describes a generic, hands-on control system laboratory developed at Drexel University that uses control system hardware to investigate various topics in control theory. The lab includes both analog and digital controllers. One of the digital controllers is an IBM AF along with A/D and D/A boards. Three experimental setups use an analog servo motor position controller to demonsrte modeling techniques, sampling, and observer design. A fourth setup involves a three degrees of freedom planar manipulator. The generic laboratory is designed to study a wide variety of processes such as motor control, robotic arm movement, tank water level and temperauture control of a solar energy system.