Thoughts on Furthering the Control Education of Practicing Engineers [Focus on Education

Abstract

This article offers insights on teaching practical improvements to control methods to engineers already practicing in the field. Virtually all these engineers have taken an introductory control class (perhaps many years ago) and have some experience with circuitry, programming, and actual control implementations. We argue that the lessons that have the most impact on these engineers are those that tie theoretical insight to methods that they can adapt almost immediately to make their jobs easier. We discuss both the environment of typical practicing engineers and some of the lessons that can immediately make them more effective. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2019 International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) Advances in Control Engineering Conference <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[1]</xref> . This expanded version draws heavily on discussions at the author’s Practical Methods for Real World Control Systems workshops and the companion book <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[2]</xref> .