EXPERIMENTAL DIDACTIC PLATFORM FOR TEACHING CONTROL SYSTEMS IN ENGINEERING

Abstract

The design and the analysis of control systems are fundamental topics in automation, electrical and electronics engineering courses. This work presents the proposal of an experimental didactic platform for teaching control systems in engineering to increase the efficiency of the students’ learning. The didactic platform has several integrated modules with adjustable parameters, such as plants, controllers and reference signal generator, making possible the learning of fundamental concepts of control systems through practical experimentation. Initially, the main modules and the characteristics of the experimental didactic platform are presented. Posteriorly, experiments to be performed with the platform are proposed. These experiments deal with fundamental concepts of control systems, such as dynamic behavior of systems, open-loop and closed-loop systems and basic types of controllers. In these experiments, reference signals are applied in several control systems configurations and the output signals are analyzed with an oscilloscope. The results demonstrate that the experimental didactic platform is a precise and simple resource, and can be easily applied in control systems disciplines for engineering.