An Approach to Teaching Control System Design and Application

This paper describes a one semester laboratory and classroom course entitled "Control System Design and Applicaton", the goal of which is to bridge the gap between theory and practice for beginning controls engineers. Our intention is that students having completed the course wil be prepared to design and implement basic controllers upon entry to industry, or alternatively, as beginning graduate students to be able to directly begin the pursuit of thesis work involving experimental and/or applied research. The course reinforces and expands upon classical controls concepts taught in our required senior level "Dynamic Systems and Controls" course, then introduces modern controls concepts and finally digital control. Lab sessions cover use of PC\´s for data acquisition and control, computer aided control system design, a DC motor parameter identification experiment, analog simulation of DC motor contol, analog implementation of DC motor control, and digital implementation of DC motor control. Informal reports are written for each lab session. The culmination of the course is a desig project where students find or devise a plant and go through the complete process of modelling, actuator/sensor specification, assignment of control objectives, and design and simulation of controllers using first classical and then modern controls concepts.