Practical Implementations in Advancing Laboratory Courses for Control Engineering Education

Some practical approaches have been introduced and applied for control engineering education. Compared with conventional lecturing and laboratory exercising, instructing outcomes can be improved significantly. Two independent sets of experimental instruments from Feedback Instruments Limited are selected to conduct experiments on a basis of the fundamental control theories. Matlab has been used for data analyzing, simulation, plotting and programming. Simulink is also employed to implement numerical simulations for advanced control practices. For practical control problems in real time, such as robotic control and engine control, Labview can be applied considering its advantages of the graphical user interface design and block diagram approach. In particular, its 33-110 servo system has been selected, which consists of three components: mechanical unit, analogue unit and digital unit. The 150 servo system contains a number of major discrete component units. Both systems can be used to test the fundamental control principles, such as the PID control. Some examples to improve classes at the system and control laboratory are presented, using software or hardware instructing tools such as the Matlab, Simulink and Labview.