An Enhanced Mechanical System for Studying the Basics of Control System Dynamics

Undergraduate students are often uncomfortable about using frequency methods. Therefore, a decision was made to try to explain this concept by using a real-life example. A common second-order damped spring-mass system was used for this purpose. Viscous dampers are known to be nonlinear. Therefore, the system’s damper was modified, and an electromagnetic damper was used instead of the viscous damper in order to get closer to linearity. In this way, the results obtained should more closely resemble the results predicted by theory.