The development of a real-time digital computer control laboratory for electrical engineering education

A project intended to substantially improve the capability of undergraduate instruction in real-time system analysis and control is discussed. The design, development, and implementation of this control educational project is reported. The laboratory consists of four experimental stations which demonstrate the typical industrial applications of process control theory. The great flexibility of microprocessors in both single and multiloop control actions offers the students a more versatile means of design and experimentation. A description of some of the real-time experiments is provided