Dynamic Systems and Controls Laboratory

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This proposal is for equipment to establish a novel form of Dynamic Systems and Controls Laboratory at the University of Texas - Pan American to be used by undergraduates in its Electrical, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering programs. The main objectives of this Laboratory are to prepare students to be multidisciplinary in their thinking, to familiarize them with a model-based simulation-oriented approach to control systems design and development, to let them gain experience with the actual equipment needed for DSP-based controller implementation (typically not done at the undergraduate level in most Engineering programs) and to physically demonstrate their implemented controllers on educational and industrial hardware, such as inverted pendulums, mechanical linkages and simple robots. We plan to achieve these goals by using hardware and software that are not only educational but also realistic (when compared to pre-packaged and proprietary educational control systems), since most of the same equipment requested in this proposal are being widely used in the companies where these students can expect to be employed upon graduation. The requested equipment will benefit this University's Engineering program in other ways. Firstly, it will help to increase the design component of several existing courses and make possible at least one new course. Secondly, via actual and videotape demonstrations of the more 'exciting' experiments as well as dissemination on the Web, it will assist in our efforts to motivate enrolled students as well as to recruit students from this region (the majority of whom are Hispanic and potential first-generation college students) by giving them a better idea of what engineers can help accomplish in an increasingly technology-driven society. Finally, we also believe that this proposal can and will serve as an improved model for other schools of what a Dynamic Systems and Controls Laboratory should be.