A progressive introduction of computer-assistance into the teaching of advanced topics in control engineering

The paper describes the use of computer-assistance in the teaching of a number of areas of control engineering. The use of computer-assistance is fairly common in all the areas described, but the material has been carefully selected to illustrate a progression in the use of computer-assistance, from an area where it is desirable and helpful to an area where it is indispensable. This provides a guide as to a progressive approach to the introduction of computer-assistance into other subject areas. There are several engineering topics taught at advanced undergraduate (or postgraduate) level in which students typically find it difficult to relate theory to practice. The widespread use of very high level computing languages provides the opportunity to carry out computer-assisted designs and generate easily-run simulations. This greatly eases this aspect of learning and allows the student to experiment with `what if´ scenarios. The paper reports some aspects of the use of MATLAB and SIMULINK (as a representative very high level environment) in the teaching of digital control, optimal control, Kalman filtering and multivariable-frequency domain control. In addition, a fully self-contained computer-based-learning package for multivariable-frequency domain analysis and design, using MATLAB, is briefly described