Microprocessor-based Virtual Control System Framework for Control Engineering Education

In control engineering, a range of disciplines is used including mathematics, physics, and mechanical, electrical, and software engineering. Its interdisciplinary nature enables university students to acquire knowledge and the ability to cope with complex problems. For control engineering education, lecturers teach classical control theory, modern control theory, and non-linear control courses. However, most students are unable to apply the basis of control theory to physical systems. In addition, in practical control engineering courses, it is necessary to purchase expensive control system equipment to train students. This raises the cost of implementing control education and makes students not familiar with the physical construction and engineering integration of control systems. To address these problems, a low-cost and high-safety design framework was developed in this study for control engineering education. This framework provides low cost, safety, and a high degree of flexibility for the digital generation of different physical systems, allowing students to learn controller design and tuning for different complex virtual physical systems under the same framework. The proposed architecture has significant potential for enhancing control engineering education for college students.