Integrated Laboratory Experiments on Automatic Control for 2nd-Year Students

Abstract

Abstract Forced by university curriculum reform (5-→ 4-year curriculum duration) the introductory control engineering course has been shifted from the 3rd year to the 2nd year and the total teaching program has been reconstructed. Therefore the idea originated to concentrate the laboratory experiments around one central process, on which sequentially various aspects can be studied, such as measurements, modelling, identification, stochastic characteristics, analog control, digital control, etc. This central process consists of three cascaded water reservoirs. The students are required to study this process over a period of five afternoons. They have to develop their own models, make the measurements, identify the system, estimate the parameters and verify the results under rather unprescribed circumstances. They themselves will conclude that, due to very big time constants, simulation is necessary. In these simulations comparisons of analog and digital simulations are made and finally an optimal controller has to be developed. In addition, special attention has been paid to the various tasks that can be done using the available small digital computers, e.g. acquisition, storage and displaying of data, aid for computations such as s → z-transformation, simulation, digital control, threshold checking etc. The process and some preliminary experiences will be reported on.