A Visual Approach to Introducing Concepts in Control Systems

Published in: Global Partnerships for Development and Engineering Education: Proceedings of the 15th LACCEI International Multi-Conference for Engineering, Education and Technology
Date of Conference: July 19-21, 2017
Location of Conference: Boca Raton, FL, United States
Authors: Daniel Raviv, PhD. (Florida Atlantic University, US)
Jorge Jimenez, Bs. (Florida Atlantic University, US)
Full Paper: #402

Abstract:

Along with the technological advancements of this decade, a growing number of students have somewhat turned away from textbook-based traditional learning, while relying more on visual methods, such as web-based videos from other universities and learning platforms (e.g., The Khan Academy). Based on experience at Florida Atlantic University, we noticed that many students seek relevance of complicated and intangible heavy-math content to real life applications. In addition, after many years of teaching Control Systems courses, we observed that some students, while doing well in class assignments and exams, are missing understanding of basic key concepts. More specifically, they are all too often perplexed by the concept of stability. To address the question of how this became a pitfall for a grand majority of our students, we decided to introduce the material differently, i.e., to first establish the “aha” moment in students’ minds, giving students something tangible to which they can relate - based on their own daily experiences. We have been trying to accomplish it in part using a 21-minute YouTube video. This video is also available to students and instructors at other universities, with the hope that they will use relevant parts in their learning and teaching. The video includes demonstrations, experiments, animation, stories, and real life examples, constantly connecting them to the concept of stability, while relating them to other concepts such as negative and positive feedback, and closed loop control. The concept of stability is introduced gradually, making sure there are no “discontinuities” in the presentation. In the first few days we noticed more than 200 viewers and a lot of highly encouraging feedback. In this paper, we list the activities with the take-away for each. They are organized in the following way: 1. High level understanding (e.g., experimenting with Jenga-like tower) 2. Bounded Input Bounded Output (e.g., hearing screeching noise; story-telling) 3. Qualitative understanding of pole location, effects on stability and Connection to the s-plane(e.g., in class building and flying a paper airplane) 4. Connection to open and closed loop and feedback (e.g., performing in class broom balancing acts) 5. Quantitative measurement of degrees of stability and instability (e.g., jumping a rope; driving in a narrow street) The video and this paper end with a challenge to the viewer to make sure he/she experience and further inquire about the concept of stability. We should notice here that this paper reports on larger scale on-going project that aims at explaining basic control system concepts in a similar manner.