Integrated Engineering Systems and Controls Laboratory

本项目将设立一个本科系统与控制实验室，供电气、机械、化学与生物资源及土木工程系使用。众所周知，课堂练习或计算机模拟本身不足以培养学生所需的批判性思维和解决问题的能力。该项目的目的是利用一个多学科实验室来解决这些问题，该实验室围绕一个中央系统和控制主题建立，并与每个系的适当课程一起运行。学生学习如何结合课程中不同部分的知识，并应用这些知识来实现期望的工程目标。本实验室设有以下实验区：核心控制实验，针对质量/弹簧/阻尼系统和伺服机构等典型问题，阐述系统基础和控制理论；以电气为重点，便于更详细地研究机电控制问题，包括由晶闸管控制的直流和交流机器、脉宽调制和变频驱动；化学和生物资源的重点，允许研究流体流动和传热，连同自动调整，和自适应控制模型化学过程钻机；和机械重点，涉及混合/监督控制的研究，以及如何集成机器（适当的交叉通信）来执行高级任务，使用机器人和自动化制造工作站。实验采用工业和现代实时控制和仪器策略中常见的控制问题，每个实验都由具有数据采集功能的PC机和虚拟仪器软件驱动。这种设置使学生能够获得实际项目的经验，并培养最新的实用设计技能。

This project initiates an undergraduate systems and controls laboratory, which will be utilized by the Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical and Bioresource, and Civil Engineering Departments. It is well recognized that classroom exercises or computer simulations alone are not sufficient to develop the critical-thinking and problem-solving skills students need. The intent of this project is to address these issues with the use of a multidisciplinary laboratory, built around a central systems and controls theme and running in conjunction with the appropriate courses in each department. The students learn how to combine knowledge from various parts of the curriculum and apply that knowledge to achieve a desired engineering goal. The laboratory is equipped with experiments in the following areas: core controls experiments, illustrating fundamentals of systems and control theory on typically encountered problems such as mass/spring/damper systems and servomechanisms; electrical emphasis, facilitating more detailed study of electromechanical control problems, including DC and AC machines controlled by thyristors, pulse width modulation, and variable frequency drives; chemical and bioresource emphasis, allowing study of fluid flow and heat transfer, together with autotuning, and adaptive control on a model chemical process rig; and mechanical emphasis, involving the study of hybrid/supervisory control, and how to integrate machines (with appropriate cross-communication) to perform high-level tasks, using a robotics and automated manufacturing workstation. The experiments use control problems commonly encountered in industry and modern real-time control and instrumentation strategies, with each experiment driven from a PC with data acquisition capabilities and virtual instrumentation software. This setup enables students to gain experience on realistic projects and develop practical design skills that are up to date.