Laboratory innovations in undergraduate control engineering education

Abstract

A three-year funding and a kind equipment donation from Moog Aerospace have enabled the author to develop Howard University Motion Control and Drives Laboratory using state-of-the-art control systems technology. The primary elements of this laboratory are establishing a comprehensive facility in an interdisciplinary, team-oriented environment, and developing a laboratory curriculum based on hands-on experience. The key hardware element of such capability is an embeddable dSPACE digital signal processor (DSP) that can be connected to various sensors and actuators, depending upon the system objectives. The key software used in the laboratory exercises is based on MATLAB/Simulink environment. The MATLAB/Simulink environment is used to build the control algorithms, allowing the students to design, and test their controllers without being distracted by software implementation issues. The controllers are first designed in Simulink. Then, the Real-Time Workshop (RTW) is used to automatically generate optimized C code for real-time applications. Afterward, the interface between MATLAB/Simulink and the dSPACE DSP DS 1104 allows the control algorithms to run on the hardware processor of the DSP. Generation of a C program with RTW is an automated process, and students are relieved from cumbersome hand coding. The laboratory environment was used in teaching an introductory laboratory control course. Implementation of the laboratory exercises gave the students a sense of accomplishment. Much enjoyment was realized in the implementation of the dSPACE DSP system and Simulink intuitive model-based programming. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2010.