Control Systems

Process Control

The modern industrial systems that are fundamental to modern automation and manufacturing processes require specialized control systems to perform and manage their daily operations. Quanser offers a variety of plants that can be used to teach the key elements of modern process control including cascade control with the Maglev and Ball and Beam systems, regulator design with the Coupled Tanks, and the control of systems with slower dynamics with the Heatflow.

Classic Systems Control

The classic progression of control systems education begins with the fundamentals of modeling and designing control plants for linear systems. Quanser offers a diverse collection of plants that can be used as ideal platforms to offer students experience using classic control principles. These plants offer basic dynamics that range from rotary and linear motion through to temperature control using the QNET HVAC.

Modern Systems Control

The modern approach to control systems takes a state space approach to the design of control systems. Quanser has a collection of plants that can be used to show how a modern approach to control systems allows for the creation of precise controllers for complex systems with higher order dynamics. These plants include both dynamically complex plants such as the linear inverted pendulum, and double pendulum, as well as plants such as the active suspension that require the use of both state space modelling to express the complex coupled dynamics of the system.

Unstable Systems

Some of the most exciting emerging technologies from bipedal walking robots to reusable rockets requires the design of controllers for unstable systems. Quanser offers several plants that offer students an experience creating control systems for directly analogous dynamic systems including single and double inverted pendulums.