A Hands-on Process Control Laboratory for Undergraduate Students: Using Low Cost Experiment Kits
نویسنده
چکیده
Process control is a difficult subject for engineering students. It is difficult for them to understand how to apply the theoretical concepts seeing in the classroom with the control process in real time. Over the last several years, the Process Control Team of Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana has developed its own prototypes in order to create a process control laboratory for undergraduate courses in control systems. These prototypes have the advantages such as their lower cost than commercial equipments with similar characteristics and the fact that the maintenance as well as future modifications can be done in a quick and easy way.The major focus of this process control laboratory is to allow student connects theory to practice through a set of practices developed in Matlab in simulation and in real time. These practices have been designed for the developed prototypes, which have been improved, refined and tested by applying Modern and Classical Control laws to show the effectiveness in real time. The combination of Matlab simulation and hands-on experience gives the students the opportunity to see the power of modern engineering tools and, the application of mathematics in real engineering problems is shown by deriving the transfer function. In this paper the control laboratory is described, the course objectives are detailed and these are evaluated by considering the recently literature of the teaching control process. Key-Words: Process Control, Control System, Control Education, Real Time Implementation and Experimental laboratory.
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